Navalny staff denies violations in fund raising

(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 19, 2013) The campaign staff of opposition activist, Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny has denied fund raising violations insinuated by the Interior Ministry.

“Apparently, everything we have done is absolutely legal. They can do nothing but post a press release with scary words every Monday,” Navalny campaign staff head Leonid Volkov told Interfax on Monday.

“The situation has been persisting for several weeks. Nothing has happened in the legal field. But each Monday they publish a scary press release with the sole purpose of creating a particular impression: the spoons (deemed stolen) were found but a nasty feeling lingered on,” Volkov said.

He thus commented on the Russian Interior Ministry statement on the non-transparent financing scheme of the Navalny election campaign and the transfer of some of the campaign funds to accounts of the opposition activist’s supporters.

“Let me remind you of this scheme: citizens Ashurkov, Lyaskin and Jankauskas transferred one million rubles. That was the maximum permitted donation of an individual to a campaign fund. Then they published their Yandex Money service numbers and citizens donated money in compensation. This money belongs to Ashurkov, Jankauskas and Lyaskin de facto, de jure and in every other possible way. They have the right to do whatever they want with this money and even transfer it to their bank accounts,” Volkov said.

The Interior Ministry said on Monday it was checking embezzlement of some campaign funds by Navalny’s supporters.

“For instance, the Interior Ministry has learned that campaign staff activist Konstantin Jankauskas obtained 5 million rubles via the Yandex Money service. He transferred one million rubles to the account of the Moscow mayoral candidate and four million rubles to his bank account,” the Interior Ministry press center said.

“There is information that other activists of this candidate’s campaign staff were engaged in similar schemes. Information about appropriation of 2.27 million rubles by Vladimir Ashurkov and 790,000 rubles by Nikolai Lyaskin is being verified,” it said.

The Interior Ministry said it was investigating the facts presented in the statement of Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky on foreign sponsorship of the Navalny campaign. “It has been confirmed that the money was transferred to the candidate’s campaign fund via the Yandex Money payment system,” a source at the Interior Ministry press center told Interfax. “Some of the foreign IP addresses used to transfer the funds were concealed, which indicated a lack of transparency in the financing scheme.”

“Everything that we are doing is absolutely legal. The campaign is being funded exclusively from the campaign account. Not a single donation from a foreign individual has been credited to the election account,” Volkov told Interfax last week.