Press Release, 23.09.2022

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On 22 September, the Forum of Municipal Candidates “After the Elections” was held in the Yabloko office in Moscow. Candidates for deputies, members of the electoral headquarters, campaign volunteers and party supporters gathered in the hall to discuss the campaign and the results of the elections, as well as to outline a plan for further work.

Kirill Goncharov, the Forum anchor and Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Yabloko, thanked on the behalf of Yabloko all the candidates for their participation in the elections in such a difficult and dangerous time and noted that 35 Yabloko candidates won the elections at real polling stations, but remote electronic voting, which was virtually impossible to control, took away the victory from the 31 candidates. More than half of the candidates were under 40 years old, this was their first experience of participating in elections as candidates. In general, even taking into account the results of the remote electronic voting, 16% of Muscovites voted for Yabloko.

Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov thanked Yabloko candidates across the country: “Today we are not only the only party, but also the only organisation in Russia that has been publicly advocating the slogan “For Peace”. This stance is taken by you, our candidates. On 11 September, you fulfilled your mission with dignity – you presented an alternative in Russian politics to the present developments in the country. You provided to 2.5 million Russian citizens the opportunity to vote for the alternative, vote for peace. And we will continue working, meeting people and convincing people of the correctness of our stance.”

Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and founder of the party, said that Yabloko’s 16% result in the municipal elections in Moscow was quite good. However, the very fact that the anti-war stance won so little in the elections was, according to Yavlinsky, appalling. “We should have had 60%, and then there would be no mobilisation. If the decision makers had the feeling that 60% of Muscovites were in favour of a ceasefire and peace, they would have stopped and thought carefully about how to proceed. When we have 16%, then this is just as always. After all, polls show that 80% support the government’s policy,” he said. According to Yavlinsky, society is still very far from understanding what has been happening.

Speaking about the role of Yabloko in the current situation, Yavlinsky noted that the party had had a positive programme at every turn of history. And it had such programme at the moment.

“Our role is to explain our stance to people. We must work for the future: for the gradual formation of a society in Russia; so that there would emerge people who are responsible for their country; so that our children would have a perspective; so that Russian culture finally plays a decisive role in the development of our country”, Grigory Yavlinsky concluded.

Yabloko candidates for municipal deputies in the past elections noted that despite the end of the election campaign, they did not plan to stop their work. The participants of the Forum asked politicians for practical advice on how to work with citizens and talk about an alternative to the current government, and what tools for dissemination of information could be sued and how to increase the number of Yabloko supporters.

Sergei Mitrokhin, a Moscow City Duma deputy and ex Chairman of Yabloko, promised to help all activists who want to become deputies and be useful to citizens.

Andrei Morev, former head of the Municipal Council of the Yakimanka district in Moscow and Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Yabloko, spoke about the public reception office Yabloko was going to open and called all to join this work.

The elected deputies spoke about their election campaigns, the first meetings of their municipal councils and plans for work.