With 96.86% of protocols counted, the party has 6.2% of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission. In the previous election to the same body in 2021, Yabloko took 3.83% in the region.
United Russia leads with 38.37%, followed by the Communist Party with 14.54%, the Liberal Democratic Party with 12.01%, New People with 9.87%, A Just Russia with 7.7% and the Party of Pensioners with 5.55%.
Novgorod Region was the only one of eight regions where the list nominated by Yabloko was admitted to the regional parliamentary election. In St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region the lists were not registered; in Karelia, Kaliningrad, Sverdlovsk, Tomsk and Pskov regions they were removed on suits filed by other parties.
The party's Novgorod branch described the result as a response to its values. "Peace, freedom and life without fear are values that found a response in the hearts and souls of people," it said.
A source in Yabloko told DW on condition of anonymity that the campaign in Novgorod took place under difficult conditions. The entire list on the ballot was marked with a label about a "foreign agent" because the list's leader, party deputy chair Anna Cherepanova, was found to be affiliated with a "foreign agent," and she herself was removed from the election over an administrative case under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code. According to the DW source, neither the labeling nor the removal of the list leader prevented the party from achieving its result.
The source added that having a deputy in the regional parliament will allow Yabloko to continue taking part in State Duma elections without collecting signatures. Before this election the party had three factions — in Pskov, St. Petersburg and Karelia — but the lists there were removed.
The Supreme Court removed Yabloko's federal list from the State Duma election on August 10 on a suit filed by the Rodina party. The suit claimed the party violated copyright in campaign materials and allegedly received foreign funding.
Despite the removal of the list, Yabloko candidates are taking part in voting in single-mandate districts — both in the State Duma election and in legislative assembly elections in seven regions. According to preliminary results on the CEC website, in several single-mandate districts in Moscow Yabloko candidates finished ahead of Communist Party candidates. Among them is former party chairman Sergei Mitrokhin.
Yabloko chairman Nikolai Rybakov said at a briefing on preliminary results that the party could have taken second place in the State Duma election if the list had not been removed.
Of all Russian parties, only Yabloko has opposed the war in Ukraine. Juergen Hardt, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's spokesman for foreign policy in the Bundestag, said in a comment for DW that by barring the party, Russian President Vladimir Putin had excluded the last significant opposition voice from the electoral process.