Court orders liquidation of nonprofit organization Alexey Navalny uses to run his presidential campaign

A Moscow court has sided with the Justice Ministry and ordered the liquidation of “Fifth Season,” the nonprofit organization Alexey Navalny has used to run his presidential campaign, apparently in violation of the group’s charter. The Justice Ministry also accused Fifth Season of breaking Russia’s privacy laws. Navalny’s team denies the allegations and promises to appeal the decision. The group’s appeal will likely be rejected, but Fifth Season will continue to operate as before until that happens.

After the government refused several times to approve the creation of a new legal entity that would serve as the organizational basis for Alexey Navalny’s presidential campaign, his team repurposed Fifth Season, founded in 2014 as the official publisher of the Anti-Corruption Foundation's newsletter, to represent the campaign legally. The group has entered roughly 70 rental agreements and hired about 300 full-time campaign staff around the country.

In late December 2017, Russia’s Central Election Commission disqualified Navalny from the March 2018 presidential election on the grounds that he is still serving out a felony probation sentence. Navalny rejects this decision and has responded by calling for a national voters’ boycott.