Samara Regional Court Removes KPRF Incumbent from Duma Ballot
On 14 August, the Samara Regional Court removed sitting State Duma deputy Mikhail Matveev of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation from the ballot for single-mandate district No. 163. The challenge was brought by Anna Sarantseva, the Pensioners' Party candidate in the same district, whose lawyers accused Matveev of illegally using photographs, images of minors and even Microsoft fonts in his campaign materials.
The dispute centred on hyperlinks from Matveev's campaign website to his posts on the social network VKontakte and to his personal site, where images of well-known journalists allegedly appeared without proper rights. After the complaint was filed, those publications were removed. Sarantseva's side argued that the removal showed the deputy effectively admitted the violation. The plaintiffs also said the campaign materials used images of minors, which is prohibited by election law, and unlicensed Microsoft fonts.
Matveev's defence maintained that he had no role in filling the campaign site, did not understand hyperlinks and could not have known that photographs were being pulled in automatically. On the fonts, the defence said Microsoft had not made any claim against Matveev and that he had acquired the fonts through a post-payment scheme with the KPRF, which in turn bought them from the Russian company Shriftovik.
After three days of hearings, Judge Tatyana Rodina rejected Matveev's request for recusal and announced the decision to cancel his registration. Matveev, who had left the courtroom by the time the ruling was read out, said he would definitely appeal.
A Hyperlink Dispute Becomes a Political Eliminator in Samara
The Legal Theory: Hyperlinks as Campaign Material
The case turned on whether links from Matveev's official campaign site to older VKontakte posts and a personal site could be treated as part of his election agitation. The plaintiffs argued that they could, pointing to photographs and other content that Matveev allegedly had no right to use. The defence responded that hyperlinks cannot simply be folded into a single campaign material and that many items had been published before the election period began.
The practical vulnerability was that the disputed material was removed after the complaint arrived. Sarantseva's lawyers used that removal as evidence that Matveev had accepted the violation. Even if the legal classification of hyperlinks remains debatable, the sequence may have made it harder for the court to treat the links as irrelevant to the campaign.
The Political Arithmetic in District No. 163
Matveev won this district in 2021 by only 1.5 percentage points against United Russia's Igor Stankevich. For 2026, he named United Russia's Alexander Zhivaykin as the main rival who, in his view, could not beat him in an honest contest. Removing a sitting deputy with a narrow local margin changes the race: it takes the most established candidate off the ballot and reduces the competition for the pro-government candidate, even though it does not automatically transfer voters.
Why a Font License Claim Became an Election Weapon
One of the more unusual accusations was that Matveev used Microsoft fonts protected by copyright without paying for them. The plaintiffs insisted that only eight or nine free Microsoft fonts could have been used. Matveev's side countered that Microsoft had brought no claim and that he bought the fonts through the KPRF, which acquired them from the Russian firm Shriftovik. Whatever the copyright merits, the episode illustrates how technical complaints about images, hyperlinks and software can be turned into election-law challenges when registration rules are strict.
What the Ruling Means for Matveev, the District and the Appeal
- For voters in district No. 163: the regional court ruling is not necessarily final. Matveev has promised an appeal, so the final ballot depends on whether a higher court reinstates his registration before the election commission closes the candidate list.
- For campaign staff and candidates in Russian elections: audit pre-campaign websites and social posts linked from official campaign pages, remove third-party photos and images of minors unless rights are clearly documented, and treat font licensing as a ballot-registration risk rather than a purely technical detail.
- For the parties: the KPRF must either defend the incumbent on appeal or prepare an alternative candidate for the district, while United Russia can expect a less contested race if the disqualification stands.
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