“Moving the Goalposts for Khodorkovski”

I felt disappointed about the publication of the survey results conducted in the district of Moscow University. The said poll indicated that 28% of the voters had stated they were willing to vote for Michael Khodorkovski. This situation was supposed to make me happy about the candidate and this constituency. This is the case, but I regret the results were published. In fact, the government will strengthen its efforts from now on to prevent Michael Khodorkovski from standing for candidacy.
On September 2, the Electoral Central Committee decided to hold the elections on December 4. Since Michael Khodorkovski was waiting for the appeal of his trial and given the fact that a convicted person could stand for elections as long as his appeal has not been processed, it was obvious that he could do that. Actually, an appeal process usually takes several months, but once the election date was fixed, the Russian justice advanced the trial date, thus breaking the law. This maneuver was aimed at preventing Michael Khodorkovski to stand for elections.
This election is much more important since it will be the last time that people vote for a candidate for the Duma. After that, it will be just a count based on the list. In this last election, we are witnessing the struggle of the enormous state machinery to prevent a candidate from winning.