“Thus, on the threshold of the Election Day, October 11, the Moscow Electoral Commission had suddenly run out of absentee voting certificates” they continued, denouncing that yesterday some observers from the Yabloko party were not allowed to carry out their functions and they have been afterwards deported from polling stations “under unknown pretexts”.

“An hour before the closing of the polls Yabloko received a real storm of telephone calls from the voters”, Yabloko party witnesses informed. “Voters reported that at the polling stations between 7 and 8p.m. "someone" had already voted on their behalf”.

Other actions of fraud and cheating toward voters have been recorded by Yabloko all over the city. I.e. “by Tulskaya and Nagatinskaya metro stations voters were offered to get money for their votes”, Yabloko testifies.  Also the BBC and other international media outlets reported about the concern that such violations of democratic principles happened also elsewhere across Russia.

ELDR supports the strong commitment of its democratic member parties Yabloko and the People’s Democratic Union in their strenuous resistance in defense of transparency and democracy in Russia.
ELDR commits itself for raising European awareness around the democratic character of elections in Russia in general, and in particular in the Moscow city Duma elections in order to examine closer the position of the Russian observers and the unclear results.

At the ELDR Congress in Barcelona on 19 and 20 November, European Liberal Democrats will discuss a resolution on the topic of citizen’s access to the electoral system in Russia.

For more details (in Russian) please refer to the Yabloko Russian website

http://www.yabloko.ru
http://www.mosyabloko.ru/category/news/11-oktyabrya-2009

See also (in English) elections to the Moscow City Duma, 2009
http://eng.yabloko.ru/Elections/regions/moscow-2009.html
http://eng.yabloko.ru/Press/2009/1011elections-moscow.html