Blotting out Lenin and Stalin: The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug electoral commission found violations in the Communist Party candidate's campaign video.
The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Electoral Commission demanded that Communist Party candidate Alexander Lamdo amend his campaign video. The reason for the change was the use of portraits of Lenin and Stalin in the video: the commission stated that using images of deceased persons was unacceptable. The communist announced this on his VK page.
Complaints about the bookshelf and the T-shirt
According to Lamdo, the commission raised questions about the portraits of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin on the cover of a book that sat on a shelf behind him during the video recording. They also raised concerns about the image on his T-shirt.
"The commission also noticed an image of a deceased person or individual on my T-shirt, which they considered a violation. The funniest thing is, they couldn't figure out what exactly was on the T-shirt. Ultimately, they ordered me to cover up the image on the T-shirt, as well as Lenin and Stalin on the book."
— wrote Lamdo.
"Controversial interpretation of legislation"
The politician stated that if subtle images of Lenin and Stalin in the background are considered to be the use of images of deceased persons, then a similar approach should be applied to other images of people in the frame. He called this interpretation of the law questionable.
Precedent of 2016
Controversies surrounding the use of images of Lenin and Stalin in political campaigning have arisen before. In 2016, the Krasnoyarsk Krai Electoral Commission demanded that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) party newspaper featuring portraits of the Soviet leaders be stopped from distributing it. However, following intervention by the Central Electoral Commission, the warning was withdrawn, as the legislation in force at the time did not explicitly prohibit the use of images of deceased persons in campaigning.
Photo: Alexander Lamdo's personal page
