The pro-democratic party Jabloko has secured a seat in the regional parliament, a result that has drawn widespread attention across Russia. The liberal opposition party secured 6.38 per cent of the vote in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and on Monday it secured a seat in the regional Duma for the first time.
The party has been largely barred from participating in elections across the country. Following a ruling by the Supreme Court, it was barred from contesting elections in most of the country, yet in the Nizhny Novgorod region it managed to secure an electoral result.
The regional branch of Jabloko in Nizhny Novgorod stated that "peace, freedom, and a life without fear are the values that resonated in people's hearts and souls". It congratulated its regional chair, Anna Cherepanova, a well-known opponent of the war and anti-corruption activist.
Experts suggest that the party was excluded from national elections because the Kremlin assessed that it could genuinely win seats in the parliament. The leader of Jabloko, Nikolai Ryabkov, positioned the party as the only force fighting for a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine, while all other parties support the ongoing invasion, which has now lasted more than four and a half years.
