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The first national Yabloko Party Congress in St. Petersburg last
weekend surprised many who think the only thing that party does
is criticize the present administration.
Grigory Yavlinsky is often criticized by his opponents for being
all talk and no action. They say he has not come up with substantive
proposals to improve the country's situation, and that he has
passed up a chance for greater influence by refusing to take a
government post or cooperate with the authorities. "He likes
to be in the opposition and needs nothing else."
But last weekend's congress offered a different picture that
suggests Yabloko's critics have focused too much on Yavlinsky.
They have not acknowledged all those Yabloko activists doing real
work in Russia's regions and making corrupt local authorities
decidedly unhappy.
The main goal of the congress was to share the experience of
regional activists in an effort to make their work more effective.
And there was a lot of experience to share.
Yabloko delegates discussed their experiences in municipal finance.
Igor Artemyev, the former chairman of the St. Petersburg municipal
finance committee, who works with Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's
administration, focused on Yabloko's effort to set up a transparent
financial management system.
During Artemyev's two years in power, he made the city budget
more transparent and set up an open system to attract bank loans
for city projects. Unfortunately, the system collapsed shortly
after Artemyev left City Hall in 1998.
"You know how it was with loans," Artemyev told the
congress. "The authorities would call a bank and negotiate
a loan at 30 percent interest against a market rate of 25 percent.
Obviously the difference ended up in somebody's pocket."
Artemyev's new system was really just a computer that gathered
data on the terms of various bank loans on a particular day when
the city needed a loan. Three officials — one from the finance
committee, one from the city treasury and one from the FSB — would
use this information to see if the city could have gotten a better
deal. Naturally, the authorities didn't like this system, but
it worked well for several months. "Shortly after I left
office," Artemyev said, "I was told that the [computer
running this] system had accidentally burned up."
But one thing did remain, which is still considered a big Yabloko
achievement: a more or less transparent budget. Before Artemyev
took office, the municipal budget was about eight pages long.
When he left, it was 600 pages.
"There are still many regions where authorities are happy
with three-page budgets, and this is intolerable," Artemyev
declared. He urged his colleagues to work on this matter when
they returned home.
"It's very easy for officials to hide wrongful spendingunder
vague budget articles … .
This is taxpayer money, so we must do something about it,"
he said.
The congress, then, was in a sense a public relations action
to demonstrate Yabloko's involvement in important, practical activity
in the regions. Such an event should have taken place long ago,
but better late than never.
It worked to some extent. Some journalists were surprised that
about 300 Yabloko members from 45 regions attended the congress.
A reporter from pro-government Itar-Tass asked, "Why have
you hidden the fact that there are so many members of Yabloko
working in legislative and executive branches all across Russia?"
That made Yavlinsky smile.
Vladimir Kovalyev is a reporter for The St. Petersburg Times.
See also:
Grigory Yavlinsky
does not see any alternative to the development of a new liberal
democratic course for reforms in Russia
Press release, 09.06.2001
All-Russia
Forum of Yabloko's representatives in the legislative and executive
authorities to be held in St. Petersburg
Press release, 08.06.2001
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