Yabloko leaders at the Federal Council of the party
Press release, 15.12.2018

On 15th December, the leaders of Yabloko shared their opinion on the situation in the country and proposed their strategies of work in the present condition during the meeting of the Federal Council of the party.

Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chair of the Yabloko party, spoke about a strategy that will allow for a decent future for Russia.

He noted that “post-truth” had become one of the key terms to describe the situation in the world today. The Russian government forges the real agenda, conceals problems, creates an imaginary world that has nothing to do with real life.

Nikolai Rybakov

“Turning away from the future is a way to isolation. It is the policy of an ostrich that buries its head in the sand to pretend that nothing is going on. However, 150 million people don’t want to hide, and we will fight for the future along with them,” Rybakov said.

According to the politician, Yabloko must offer a decent and clear alternative to the party of war. Yabloko should address all active and mindful people who are not ready to talk about a war with a smile on their face.

“The present system is inefficient – it can only introducer bans and limits. We are going to build and create new opportunities instead. There will be a time when the truth become the most important thing, and we are telling the truth”, the politician said.

Lev Shlosber, an MP of the Pskov Region Legislative Assembly and Chair of the Pskov Region party branch, stated that the Russian government was behaving as an occupant – it was distorting the country and society clinically, cruel and immorally.

Shlosberg stressed that “there is neither freedom, nor justice in Putin’s Russia”. What is more, the government wants to fix such a state of offer in the Constitution.

The politician said that the government ignored people, manipulated them. “There are using millions of people to make their mechanism go,” he noted.

Lev Shlosberg

According to Shlosberg, the main aim of the party is to preserve the country.

“We should decide on Russia’s image of the future. We need a human policy instead of an inhuman one. We should create a party of the democratic majority. No one has managed to bring this idea to life yet,” he stressed.

Sergei Ivanenko, Deputy Chair of the Yabloko party, said that even Yabloko’s rivals acknowledged that the party had a clear system of values.

According to Ivanenko, liberal democracy that gained momentum in the 1920s led to significant results – economic breakthrough allowed for the development of technology.

However, the world had faced new challenged, Ivanenko said. “Liberal democracies do not have answers to them yet. They are social stratification and job cuts as a result of technological achievements. This resulted in the growth of populism, nationalism and protectionism. At the same time, there is not a country in the world that could exist on its own, outside the global economy,” he explained.

Sergei Ivanenko

“We need to find answers to these challenged on the basis of the liberal ideology. The aim of our party is to improve our expert and analytical work,” Ivanneko noted.

According to Yabloko Deputy Chair, some [Russian] liberals count on a revolution. However, it is not the way out of the present situation. Revolutions in Russia have always led to reaction. As a result, the country lags behind.

“We have nothing to be ashamed of. Tomorrow is with our party and our ideology”, he told those present.

Boris Vishnevsky, an MP of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly and member of Yabloko Federal Political Committee, described the situation in Russia as “darkness before dawn”.

He said that almost all the laws that the government passed were aimed at limiting the rights inshrine din the Constitution. The Kremlin is doing everything to prevent the citizens from taking part in decision-making because a President who was brought up by the “secret police” can only create a repressive police state.

Vishnevsky stressed that “Yabloko is an anti-military party. We should affair an alternative to the policy of further militarisation of the country”.

Boris Vishnevsky

According to the MP, if more people had voted in the presidential election and supported the alternative to Vladimir Putin, the country would have avoided the current destructive policy.

“Our way of life is the result our voting. We can achieve changes only if people participate in the political life of the country”, he said.

Vishnevsky thinks that Yabloko should remain faithful to its values: “We should respect each other in our party the way we want the government to respect the citizens of Russia,” he summed up.

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova and Federal Political Committee Chair Grigory Yavlinsky also had the floor during the meeting of the Federal Council.