Seven Russian political parties, including the anti-war Yabloko, are set to enter the Novgorod Regional Duma following the country’s three-day parliamentary elections, held Sept. 18-20. According to regional election commission data published on the morning of Sept. 21, Yabloko had 6.2% of the vote with 96.86% of precinct protocols counted. The Novgorod Region was the only part of the country where the party was allowed to take part in the elections.
The other parties set to enter the regional legislature are:
- United Russia (38.37%)
- The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (14.54%)
- The Liberal Democratic Party (12.01%)
- New People (9.87%)
- A Just Russia (7.7%)
- Party of Pensioners (5.55%)
The Communists of Russia party — not to be confused with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation — failed to clear the 5% threshold, taking 3.3%
The Novgorod Regional Duma has 32 seats: 20 are elected in single-member districts and 12 are allocated proportionally based on votes cast for regional party lists.
Yabloko also applied to run in elections to seven other regional legislatures, but its party lists were denied registration in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, while courts removed its lists in Karelia and the Kaliningrad, Sverdlovsk, Tomsk, and Pskov regions following lawsuits filed by other parties.
Yabloko was also barred from the nationwide election for Russia’s State Duma. A court removed the party from the race on Aug. 10 following a lawsuit filed by the Rodina party, which alleged that Yabloko’s use of photographs showing the aftermath of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima violated the U.S. Army’s copyright protections.
Yabloko was the only registered party running on an anti-war platform, campaigning under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom.” The court ruling blocking its participation in the vote also cited the party’s advertising on blocked social media platforms (such as Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube) and its receipt of money transfers from abroad.
