Navalny should leave mayoral race - Zhirinovsky
MOSCOW. Aug 12 (Interfax) - Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and its faction in the State Duma, said Alexei Navalny should withdraw from the Moscow mayoral elections and a criminal case should be opened against him over the foreign financing of his election campaign.
"Alexei Navalny should leave the election race and another criminal case should be opened against him. His term [should be] extended on two criminal cases. Now we can approve a sentence of five years [in prison], he will go to a penal colony and other legal proceedings involving foreign funding and tax evasion can begin," Zhirinovsky said on the official website of the Liberal Democratic Party on Monday.
Zhirinovsky said he has no doubts that Navalny received money from abroad for his election campaign. He believes the very form in which the money went to electronic accounts raises doubts.
"Money transfers were received every ten seconds, and the amounts were the same. If someone sent 5,000, someone sent 6,700, and someone sent 300 rubles, it would be obvious that those were citizens," the politician said.
Zhirinovsky believes it is not difficult to find the real sources of this money. "When we filed an inquiry with the Prosecutor General's Office, they conducted an investigation and found out that Navalny's election campaign was financed mainly by foreigners: there were transfers to Yandex.Dengi from almost 300 foreign legal entities and private individuals and anonymous senders," Zhirinovsky said.
Zhirinovsky said the money came from 46 countries, including the United States, Finland, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Canada from 347 addresses "to the electronic wallets of Navalny or members of his election headquarters."
Zhirinovsky also said that the Russian democratic movement had connections abroad 25 years ago and that the functions of the democratic opposition were "destructive." "Alexei Navalny is a fine example of a representative of a new wave of this movement," Zhirinovsky said.
In the meantime, Navalny said there is no foreign money in his campaign account and that the Prosecutor General's Office's statement on this matter will not have any legal ramifications.
