Russian Supreme Court has upheld the decision of a Moscow City court banning the Rodina party from the city elections. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR requested that the elections committee prohibit Rodina from running in the elections based on two reasons:
1) Rodina published a phone number that belongs to their member of parliament; it is illegal to do so, because taxpayers pay for these phone calls; and
2) this video.
Rodina proved that it was the publisher’s mistake, that the phone number appeared on the brochures, but the court reaffirmed the Moscow City court decision, adding that the video “promoted racism and national hatred”.
What does this mean for Rodina? Well, they are not running in these elections, but they have definitely become the most popular party after the Putin’s United Russia. Federal elections are just couple years away, and maybe this apparent setback for Rodina wasn’t just the result of a mistake, but a very clever calculation, which will gain them an enormous amount of votes in Russia in two years from now.
