A meeting of leaders of registered political parties with
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has just finished. The key
issue of the meeting was discussion of the political reform.
The YABLOKO party was represented by Sergei Mitrokhin, YABLOKO
Chairman, and Sergei Ivanenko, Political Committee member.
Sergei Mitrokhin handed to President Medvedev a list of demands
put forward by participants of the demonstration and rally
of February 4, including the general resolution of the rally,
the resolution demanding registration of Grigory Yavlinsky
in the presidential election campaign and the list of political
prisoners.
YABLOKO leader also draw the attention to political prisoner
Maxim Petlin, leader of the Sverdlovsk region branch of YABLOKO,
still kept in jail. Sergei Mitrokhin showed to the head of
state a document which had launched political reprisals against
Petlin - a court order, which had given a permission to the
FSB (Federal Security Service) to monitor Petlin’s telephone
conversations, read his correspondence and keep him under
surveillance.
Mitrokhin also handed to the President a list of refusals
from the courts to examine YABLOKO’s suits on election fraud.
"The courts are very negligent as regards our suits,
they do not consider them in essence, and judges try to prove
that black is white and vise versa,", Mitrokhin told
to President Medvedev. According to Mitrokhin, "it is
impossible to seek justice in courts”.
Speaking about the political reform, representatives of the
YABLOKO party expressed their satisfaction with reduction
of the threashold on the number of members for political parties.
However, they also noted that the Ministry of Justice should
not audit the number of party members.
Mitrokhin also stressed that representatives of political
parties should be entitled to send their representatives with
the right of decisive vote to electoral commissions of all
levels. He added that 77 per cent of YABLOKO’s candidates
to district electoral commissions were turned down.
As regards the return of gubernatorial elections, YABLOKO’s
representatives proposed to reduce the gubernatorial term.
Mitrokhin drew special attention of President Medvedev to
Moscow and St. Petersburg, as their residents can not elect
mayors, as in other cities. However, the President said that
this was impossible "due to legal grounds."
YABLOKO leader also proposed to establish a working group
for development of a draft law "On Elections to the State
Duma." Dmitry Medvedev answered that he was going to
submit the law right now, but the working group would be able
to influence amendments to the draft law.
The President supported YABLOKO’s proposal on differentiation
of criminal responsibility for election fraud.
See also:
Presidential
Elections 2012
State Duma
Elections 2011
Gubernatorial
Elections
Human
Rights
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