Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Members of the St. Petersburg and the Pskov electoral commissions with a decisive vote from Yabloko voted against the approval of the results of elections to regional parliaments and filed dissenting opinions.
Photo: Maria Rakcheyeva and Konstantin Smirnov / Photo by Vidsboku
According to the results of the elections, Konstantin Smirnov, Chairman of the Ryazan branch of the Yabloko party and the editor-in-chief of Vidsboku, was re-elected as a deputy of the Dubrovichy rural settlement of the Ryazan region for a second term. The settlement is located near Ryazan. In addition to Dubrovichy, it includes the village of Alekanovo. The territory of this Ryazan suburb is one of the most popular for cottage construction, while the infrastructure of the “old” part of the settlement is extremely worn out. In the new convocation, Smirnov intends to further fight against land manipulations and raise the problems of the housing and utilities services in the settlement.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov (in the centre) / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
On 20 September, Yabloko held a press conference in the party headquarters in Moscow. Yabloko leaders summed up the results of the elections to the State Duma.
Photo: Top row: Boris Vishnevsky, Alexander Shishlov, Emilia Slabunova.
Bottom row: Inna Boluchevskaya, Artur Gaiduk, Vladimir Ryzhkov
Deputies from the Yabloko party will continue to work in the regional parliaments of St. Petersburg, Karelia and the Pskov region. Vladimir Ryzhkov will become the fifth deputy from Yabloko in the Moscow City Duma. There will also be a Yabloko faction in the city parliament of the capital of Karelia Petrozavodsk – the Petrozavodsk City Council.
Yabloko records all types of violations during voting in the elections to the State Duma, said the leader of the party Nikolai Rybakov, speaking at a briefing.
“Carousels [when same people vote several times at different precincts], stuffing of ballots, people who died indicated as voters in the voter lists, observers are not allowed to see the voter lists, touch-screen voting machines are not sealed, home voting reaches 50% in some areas, voter books are not stitched or numbered, observers are prohibited from taking photos and videos, they are removed from polling stations and even beaten, portable ballot boxes are not sealed, there are malfunctions in the distant voting system,” Rybakov said.
In the Moscow region, there was recorded a large number of cases when observers and members of electoral commissions were subjected to psychological and physical pressure after Yabloko recorded violations of the electoral legislation.
The results of voting at polling station No. 349 (Shuya, Ivanovo region) for September 17 were canceled on the complaint by Ivan Krisanov, a member of the precinct electoral commission with an advisory vote from Yabloko. The reason for the cancellation of the voting results was the stuffing of the ballots.
Photo: Yaroslav Shcherbakov / Photo by the Press Service of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko
Observers from Yabloko, Denis Ibragimov and Anton Serichenko, were attacked by precinct Electoral Commission No. 686 after they were able to identify the stuffing of the ballots. Assistant to United Russia State Duma deputy Vladimir Burmatov attacked the Yabloko obervers with fists. Observers suggest that it was in favour of Burmatov that the ballots were stuffed in.
On 17-19 September, a hotline will operate at the Yabloko election headquarters, which will receive calls about violations from observers and Yabloko members of electoral commissions.
On 15 September, the Yabloko party presented its anti-corruption programme, consisting of 100 items. Yabloko believes that corruption should be viewed as a violation of human rights. The presentation was attended by the leader of Yabloko Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of the party Ivan Bolshakov, Yabloko candidates for the State Duma – lawyer Roman Kiselev and member of the Yabloko Bureau Grigory Grishin.
Photo by the Press Service of the Moscow branch of Yabloko
On 14 September, Vladimir Ryzhkov handed over to the Moscow Government more than 5,000 signatures of Muscovites in support of his initiative to increase the “Moscow budget increment” to pensions to 10,000 roubles.
For a month Vladimir Ryzhkov has been collecting signatures of Muscovites under an appeal to the Moscow Government and the Moscow City Duma to raise the size of the Moscow budget increment in pensions of Muscovites from an average of 7,000 to 10,000 roubles. More than 5,000 signatures have been collected.
The state-owned newspapers “Respublika Tatarstan” and “Vatanym Tatarstan” refused to publish campaign material by Ruslan Zinatullin, candidate for the State Duma from Yabloko in constituency No.31 (the city of Kazan). The reason was the slogan of Zinatullin: “Against Putin, swindlers and thieves!”
Today in Yekaterinburg, together with Maxim Petlin, Сhairman of the Sverdlovsk Region branch of the party, and Yabloko’s candidates for the State Duma Alexander Kudelkin, Vladislav Postnikov, Albert Khusnutdinov, and Konstantin Kiselev, head of the Yabloko faction in the Yekaterinburg Duma, I came to the park of the Ural State University of Railway Transport which Yabloko activists helped to save from cutting. The management of the Ural State University of Railway Transport has been trying to build a swimming pool instead of the park for ten years already. In 2020, dozens of large trees were cut down on the territory, which caused discontent among citizens. Thanks to the actions of the activists from the Sverdlovsk Region branch of Yabloko and local environmental activists, the felling was stopped, and new trees were planted in place of the felled ones. Yabloko considers it necessary to introduce a moratorium on the development of green zones in our cities – the environmental situation in megacities is unfavourable and it is necessary to find other territories for construction, and not to destroy parks and gradens.
Together with the activists of the Sverdlovsk Region branch of Yabloko – the leader of the regional Yabloko branch Maxim Petlin, the candidate for the regional elections Georgy Sergienko and the headquarters volunteers, – we went to Nizhny Tagil, where the candidates Pavel Khoroshilov and Irina Ivanova were waiting for us. On our way, we stopped at the village of Chernoistochinsk, which stands on the bank of a reservoir that supplies drinking water to several cities, including Nizhny Tagil. Last year, the residents found a large number of floating dead fish in the pond (as the locals call the reservoir). The main reason was the rotting of blue-green algae, while the treatment facilities could not cope with the treatment of wastewater. Yabloko believes that the state is now obliged to invest in the repair of treatment facilities throughout the country. This is especially important in regions such as the Sverdlovsk Region, the drinking water in the region (according to the RF Accounts Chamber) is the most polluted in Russia.
Photo: Anton Gordyuk / Photo from Anton Gordyuk’s personal archive
On 13 September, the Electoral Commission of the Leningrad Region declared unlawful the refusal of the Leningrad Region TV Company to broadcast the campaign materials of Anton Gordyuk, a candidate for State Duma deputy from the Yabloko party.
Photo: Yabloko’s campaign billboard in Vladivostok. Photo by Vitaly Ankov / RIA Novosti
This year, in addition to the State Duma elections, Yabloko candidates are participating in 56 election campaigns at the regional and municipal levels in 27 regions of the Russian Federation.
975 candidates from Yabloko were registered: 654 on party lists, and 321 in single-mandate constituencies. Many of the Yabloko candidates were not admitted to the elections for political reasons.
The Second Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the Chelyabinsk Regional Court on the registration of Yabloko’s candidate Valentina Komkova for the State Duma elections in Zlatoust Electoral District No. 193. The Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko plans to prepare a cassation appeal, which will be considered before the elections.
The long-awaited meeting with Olga Vshivkova, the head of the “Kungur – the Territory of Goodness” charitable foundation, last year she became a deputy of the City Duma, and has been representing Yabloko there. The Foundation helps people in hardships. Here, anyone in need can get the necessary clothes for themselves or their child for free. The number of such organisations in the country has been growing. If your city has a collection point for clothes, see if there are items in your wardrobe that you can give there so that to help people. Such charitable foundations work effectively with citizens, that is why Yabloko advocates transferring part of state social powers to charitable organisations.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky (right) and two other “Boris Vishnevskys”
In the evening of 9 September, the student magazine Doxa published a journalistic investigation “St.Petersburg State University is looking for students so that to “falsify the elections a little” in favour of the candidate from United Russia and the head of the Committee of St.Petersburg. He is running against the three Boris Vishnevskys”.
