Moscow Election Commission issues warning to oppositionist candidate

Moscow City Election Commission had issued a verbal warning to the Russian opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny over what it described as an encroachment on the mayoral race promotion procedures. A complaint over the violations was filed by another candidate Nikolai Levichev. August 14, printed products with a total weight of about two tons were delivered to the commission. The consignment included stickers and leaflets that did not contain the output data on the number of copies printed, the name of the printing house, or the date of issue, which are mandatory for the political promotion products. The stock was found August 13 in a residential apartment in the downtown Chistoprudny Boulevard Street. A team of policemen entered the apartment upon getting a complaint from Nikolai Levichev’s assistant, who said illegal promotion materials were stored there. Following up on the complaint, the police held a search inside the apartment and confiscated the materials. Valentin Gorbunov, the chief of the Moscow City Election Commission said earlier he was astonished by the reports that entirely legal promotion materials containing all the necessary output data had been found together with the illegal ones. Alexei Navalny had submitted samples of the legal produce to the commission personally. Earlier this week, the police held a search inside the Moskovsky Izdatelsky Dom printing house that prints the promotion materials for Navalny and for another candidate for the Mayor’s Office, Ivan Melnikov, a representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.