Judicial rulings have barred 14 candidates from Russia’s Yabloko party, including five regional leaders, leaving the election with only a controlled appearance of pluralism.
The Kremlin is continuing a sweeping purge of viable opponents from Russia’s parliamentary election, with 14 Yabloko candidates standing in single-member constituencies removed from the race by court decisions as of 10 September 2026 – one week before polling day. The party says the cases are politically motivated, while the removals are turning the electoral process into a mechanism for controlling who can offer voters a meaningful alternative.
On 9 September, the Novgorod regional electoral commission cancelled the registration of Anna Cherepanova, Yabloko’s deputy chair and head of its Novgorod branch. She was accused of “displaying extremist symbols” after publishing on YouTube a video recording of an opposition rally held on 23 January 2021. Yabloko has described the case as fabricated and Cherepanova’s prosecution as politically motivated. The party’s account of the Novgorod decision is available here.
Regional leaders removed from the ballot
Cherepanova is the fifth head of a Yabloko regional branch to lose the right to take part in the current campaign for the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. Courts have already removed four other regional leaders standing in single-member constituencies: Iya Boronina in Udmurtia, Anton Paramonov in Tula region, Yaroslav Shcherbakov in Chelyabinsk region and Sergei Kryzhov in Moscow region.
The removals form a consistent pattern rather than a series of isolated disputes. Candidates associated with Yabloko’s moderate opposition and anti-war platform are being excluded through courts, electoral commissions and bureaucratic procedures. The party’s reports on developments in Udmurtia and the wider campaign show how the decisions are being applied against its candidates across different regions: Udmurtia and Chuvashia.
Despite the removals, 117 Yabloko candidates standing in single-member constituencies remain in the State Duma campaign. That limited presence gives the authorities a convenient display of formal competition and opposition participation, while the candidates most likely to attract significant support or articulate a clear anti-war position are pushed out.
Election law as a tool of political selection
The case against Cherepanova illustrates the increasingly retrospective use of election and administrative law. A video of a rally from 2021 has been treated as evidence of extremist symbolism, even though the event took place five years before her removal from the ballot. This destroys legal certainty: conduct that was lawful when it occurred can later be reinterpreted as grounds for exclusion from an election.
The authorities’ use of such arguments shows how far Russian enforcement practice has deteriorated. Claims involving extremist imagery, disputes over copyright or minor technical defects in documents can all become grounds for removing an unwanted candidate. The rules no longer operate simply as instructions for organising a vote. They function as a selection mechanism in which every independent candidate is treated as a potential threat.
In this system, Russian courts no longer act as independent arbiters of electoral disputes. They have become instruments of executive power and the administrative apparatus, implementing political decisions through legal procedures. Electoral commissions provide the final formal step, allowing the exclusion of candidates to appear procedural rather than political.
A controlled version of pluralism
The continued participation of some Yabloko candidates does not offset the removal of its most prominent regional figures. Instead, it helps the Kremlin preserve the appearance of a pluralist contest while preventing independent political voices from gaining genuine electoral traction. Opposition is permitted only within boundaries that do not threaten the predetermined outcome or challenge the official political course.
That approach has consequences beyond the immediate campaign. By driving out the last legal political forces openly advocating an end to the war, the authorities are removing one of the few remaining peaceful routes through which citizens can express dissent. Elections stripped of live political debate cannot resolve social tensions; they merely preserve them and deepen the distance between the state and society.
The immediate question is whether the remaining Yabloko candidates will be allowed to complete the campaign without further legal or administrative interventions. The broader damage is already clear: the more openly the authorities use election law to control participation, the less credible the vote becomes as an institution for expressing public opinion.
Can an election retain public legitimacy when opposition candidates are permitted to stand only if they pose no real challenge?
