Volunteers are collecting signatures for registration of Grigory Yavlinsky as candidate for President of Russia among Russian citizens living or working abroad. Collection of signatures is held in seven European countries, the US and Canada. So far, none of other Russian parties and candidates have attempted to collect signatures of Russian citizens living or working abroad.

Russian citizens working in the UK, France, Germany, Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, USA and Canada wrote to YABLOKO with a proposal to collect signatures among compatriots abroad.

As in Russia, volunteers are collecting signatures abroad for free, despite of complicated bureaucratic procedure of attesting the sheets with signatures at consulate departments and their expensive dispatch to Moscow.

The main difficulty is that so far none of the parties and candidates have collected signatures abroad. Volunteers often have a lot of questions and even the staff of the Central Electoral Commission whom YABLOKO turned to for consultations could not always answer them.

In accordance with the Russian law all the sheets with signatures have to be attested by a consul. Then they have to be filed and the total of the sheets and signatures have also be attested by a consul.

The cities where YABLOKO volunteers collect signatures are as flows:

London, the UK,
Paris, France,
Hamburg, Bremen, Germany,
Prague, the Czech Republic,
Brussels, Belgium,
Zurich, Switzerland,
Copenhagen, Denmark,
Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles, the US,
Montreal, Canada

The Russian law requires for a candidate from a non-parliamentary party to collect and submit by January 18 to the Central Electoral Commission at least 2 million of signatures in favour of his nomination to run in the campaign. Moreover, such a campaign for collection of signatures should be conducted by a party nominating its candidate in at least 40 Russian regions, whereas the number of signatures collected in each of the regions should not exceed 50,000. Collection of signatures for registration in the election campaign began on December 23 and will go through January 14.

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