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By Alexey Eremenko
Yabloko party co-founder Grigory Yavlinsky will come out of
political retirement to head the party's list in the State
Duma elections, the party announced Sunday at a Moscow congress.
Yavlinsky, 59, handed over the reins of Yabloko, which he
co-founded in 1993, to Sergei Mitrokhin in 2008 but kept a
seat on the party's political committee. Now the duo will
occupy the top two spots on the party's federal list in the
December vote, Interfax reported.
The third spot will go to Alexei Yablokov, a noted environmentalist
and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Also running on the party ticket will be Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief
Dmitry Muratov; Anatoly Leirikh, a senior member of Delovaya
Rossia, a business lobby group; and Andrei Rudomakha of Environment
Watch North Caucasus, a nonprofit group known for reporting
about a Black Sea mansion of unclear ownership dubbed "Putin's
Palace."
Yabloko members Valery Borshchyov, who headed an independent
investigation into lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death for the
Kremlin's rights council, and Sergei Kovalyov, head of the
Memorial rights watchdog, will also run.
The party, which has had no faction in the last two Dumas,
will field 380 candidates nationwide. A quarter of them are
women, two-thirds have higher education, and 15 percent hold
academic titles, said party spokesman Igor Yakovlev.
Party candidates will "go to the Duma to draft legislation
and clean the Augean stables that have piled up there over
all these years," Mitrokhin said at the party congress.
The party electoral platform is called "Russia Wants
Change" and subtitled "We're bringing back your
hope." Its focal point is a crackdown on the privileges
of state officials and rampant graft. The program also backs
a Kremlin proposal to create a joint missile defense shield
with NATO, despite the alliance's oft-expressed reluctance
to accept the offer.
Yavlinsky said at the congress that the party hopes to scoop
10 to 12 percent of the vote, provided it is not overly rigged
and turnout reaches 60 to 70 percent.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the country's arguably least successful
party, the Patriots of Russia, held its own congress in Moscow
that also approved a program and a party list for the Duma
vote, Interfax said.
The party, whose approval ratings hover around 1 percent,
the same as Yabloko, decided to place its leader, Gennady
Semigin, at the top of the party list. Rounding out the top
three names on the list are party official Nadezhda Korneyeva
and obscure actor Sergei Makhovikov, who was once awarded
a prize for "playing men of courage in movies and on
television."
See also:
The
orginal publication
Elections
to the State Duma 2011
Grigory
Yavlinsky's manifesto: Elections versus a Revolution. Press
Release, Video, September 11, 2011
YABLOKO's
Congress. Sergei Mitrokhin about priorities for the YABLOKO
faction in the State Duma.Press Release,
September 10, 2011
The 16th Congress of the YABLOKO party began its work in
the Moscow region.
YABLOKOs congress started with a minute of silence in view
of air accident taking the lives of the players of the Locomotive
team.
YABLOKOs Chairman Sergei Mitrokhin opened the congress.
In his report Mitrokhin gave assessment to the present Russias
political and economic system and marked the priorities of
the work of the faction in the State Duma. According to Mitrokhin,
Russia had become a hostage of inefficient state and inefficient
economic system.
YABLOKO is a responsible political force, that is why it
will participate in the coming elections to the Russian parliament,
he said.
According to Mitrokhin YABLOKOs goal at the coming elections
is formation of its faction in the State Duma.
Only YABLOKO due to the specifics of its ideology and programme
can challenge the monopoly of corrupted bureaucracy merged
with business, Mitrokhin stressed. He also noted that this
monopoly is supported not only by the ruling United Russia,
but also by other factions of the parliament proclaiming themselves
as the opposition.
According to Mitrokhin, YABLOKO is going to stop total theft
and corruption which have penetrated the entire state and
dismantle the present oligarchic system.
Mitrokhin said that economic policy should become one of
the priorities for YABLOKOs faction in the State Duma. He
specially marked YABLOKOs programme Land-Housing-Roads
as a programme which creating unprecedented domestic demand
could get the country out of stagnation and prevent another
leap of economic crisis in Russia. This envisages gratuitous
and mass-scale transfer of federal lands to the citizens under
their housing construction and development of infrastructure
(water, gas and electricity supply), as well as construction
of roads at the expense of the federal budget, i.e. the reserves
accumulated for the recent years due to high oil and gas prices.
The second goal of the party mentioned by Mitrokhin was creation
of a powerful middle class which should form a basis for democracy
as in developed democracies. YABLOKOs leader also stated
that another goal would be establishing a feed-back between
the authorities and the society, restoration of democratic
institutes and real federalism, YABLOKO would demand return
of gubernatorial and mayor elections, introduction of direct
elections to the Federation Council, strengthening of local
self-governing and putting an end to pursuing of civil society
activists and the dissenting by the state.
Mitrokhin noted that YABLOKO was ready to take up responsibility
for the Russian parliament, turn it to the people and make
it serve the society, rather than oligarchs.
Russia demands changes and we will make them, Mitrokhin
concluded.
At present discussion of different variants of electoral
programmes has been launched. Sergei Mitorkhin and Grigory
Yavlinsky also introduced their variant of the programme
electoral platform Russia Needs Changes! This platform was
introduced by Grigory Yavlinsky. He stressed that in his view
the Land-Housing-Roads project should be a consistent part
of YABLOKOs platform as it will let to virtually change the
situation in Russia.
The Pensioners and the Youth faction also introduced their
visions of the programme and the items it should reflect.
See also:
Activities
Modernisation
in Russia
Elections to the State
Duma 2011
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