YABLOKO’s
leader Sergei Mitrokhin expressed his disappointment with
Presidential Address to the Russian parliament, as Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev virtually failed to propose any
measures in the field of political reform.
“He did not say a word about the “glorified” United Russia
party and nothing was proposed in the field of political reform,
however, in an earlier statement the President had noted that
without such a reform we would not be able to overcome the
signs stagnation,” Mitrokhin said.
“Only cosmetic changes has taken place; whereas inequality
of the parties that will run in the parliamentary elections
has been maintained. In addition, the past regional and municipal
elections demonstrated that election fraud did not reduce
at all,” he noted.
“Obviously it was decided that the political reform had been
generally conducted. Small cosmetic measures undertaken in
accordance with the previous [presidential] addresses were
announced be a comprehensive political reform and acknowledged
sufficient. Most likely, nothing will be done here anymore,”
stated YABLOKO’s leader.
Mitrokhin also highlighted President’s proposal on introduction
of a proportional system at local elections, which, according
to Mitrokhin, is beneficial for the parties. However, Mitrokhin
said added that this proposal was “an intrusion into the competence
of local self-governing.” “Once again the state is imposing
some scheme onto [the local self-governing], which should
solve the tasks that are not connected with local self-governing
at all. This demonstrates a deeply rooted misunderstanding
by the state of what local self-governing is about. Local
self-governing once again suffers from the state compulsion,”
added Mitrokhin.
The part of the Presidential Address referring to the economic
development of the state left YABLOKO’s leader in bewilderment.
“The emphasis is laid on low energy efficiency and that’s
it; nothing has been said about other problems. However, in
our view, the key problems are huge energy dependency and
merger of the government with business in managing the economy,”
Mitrokhin stated.
Speaking about the positive aspects of the Address, Mitrokhin
noted that he supported “everything that President was saying
about the need to take care of children and future generations”.
“At the same time the UN convention on the rights of the child
has not been implemented in Russia, which has been recently
marked by the Committee on the Rights of the Children,” he
added. According to Mitrokhin, implementation of presidential
initiatives is directly linked with a political reform: “without
this social problems will be left unsolved”.
However, YABLOKO’s leader supported the initiative of the
head of the state on creation of a joint Russian-European
antiballistic missile defence system.
See also:
Modernisation
in Russia
Human
Rights
Social
policies
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