The nomination of Yabloko’s (LI full-member) Presidential Candidate, Grigory Yavlinsky, has been officially endorsed by former Soviet president and leader of Perestroyka, Mikhail Gorbachev. It follows the disputed Russian Duma elections in December 2011. According to the Russian law, since Yavlinsky has been nominated by a non-parliamentary party, he needs to collect and submit at least 2 million signatures to the Central Electoral Commission in order to run in the upcoming Presidential elections. The latest party’s press release indicates that the leader of Yabloko has managed to collect signatures from all Russian regions, as well as from Russian citizens working and living abroad. This equates to around 2, 132, 000 votes in just 25 days. Yavlinsky commented saying “collecting 2 million signatures is not just a technical procedure. It means that 2 million people have vowed to support the political alternative that we represent.” A day after Yavlinsky was nominated as a candidate for the presidential elections, LI President Hans van Baalen MEP made a telephone call to Mr. Yavlinsky expressing LI’s full support.

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