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YABLOKO expresses protest in view of intimidation of Golos, an independent association engaged in election monitoring. The ruling United Russia party, A Just Russia party and LDPR launched an intimidation campaign against Golos asking Prosecutor General to suspend Golos monitoring of violations during this parliamentary election campaign and on the voting day December 4.

�It is not surprising that the [ruling] United Russia party does not like the activities by Golos� Speaking about participation of LDPR and A Just Russia parties in this disgusting campaign against Golos, this completely unmasks the hypocrisy of these parties advocating fair elections in words only, but actually servicing to the ruling party helping the latter to intimidate the most respected Russian public organisation engaged in elections control,� runs YABLOKO�s statement.

�YABLOKO will continue its cooperation with Golos and will continue supporting this organisation by all legal means,� Sergei Mitrokhin said.

November 29, 2011

Galina Mikhalyova met with CIS observers for the Russian parliamentary elections

Press Release, November 29, 2011

Today, on November 29, Galina Mikhalyova, Executive Secretary of YABLOKO Political Committee, met with CIS observers for the Russian parliamentary elections: Vladimir Garkun, head of the mission and First Deputy Head of the CIS Executive Committee, and Eugeny Sloboda.

The observers told about the tasks of the CIS mission comprising over 200 observers...

Electoral Mutiny in TV Ad Ban

The Moscow Times, November 29, 2011

Campaign ads by opposition parties have been banned on state television by order of the head of the Central Elections Commission, who has no authority to do so, Vedomosti reported Monday.
Vladimir Churov's actions prompted a mutiny among the commission's working group, whose job is to review such videos, but which was only asked to do so after they were banned, the newspaper said.
State-owned broadcaster VGTRK announced last week that it was banning videos by Yabloko, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats following a letter from Churov, who said he suspected the ads promoted extremism and targeted other parties...

The original publication by the Moscow Times

Yabloko 'Veggies' Ad Banned by Metro

The Moscow Times, November 28, 2011

The head of the Moscow metro ordered election ads for the opposition party Yabloko to be removed from stations and then threatened to cancel a long-term contract with the advertising company involved, the political group claimed.
In a statement posted on its web site Friday, Yabloko � Russian for apple � said stickers reading: "Tired of vegetables? Vote for YABLOKO" that were posted Nov. 2 to 3 at the entrances to 85 stations were removed just days later.
The removal followed a letter from metro chief Ivan Besedin to the advertising company Avto Sell, saying the notices "grossly violated" conditions on political advertising, which require prior approval by metro officials and City Hall's media department...

The original publication by the Moscow Times

New ELDR President elected

Press Release, November 29, 2011

ELDR congress convening in Palermo, Italy, on November 23-25, elected Sir Graham Watson,
one of the leaders of British liberal democrats, new President of the European Liberal Democrats and Reformers party. Sir Graham has been member of the European Parliament since 1994. In 2002-2009 he headed the liberal faction in the European Parliament and during Russian elections in 2003 visited Russia as guest of the YABLOKO party. "It is our job as Liberals to explain how we offer a real, principled and economically responsible alternative to the behemoths of conservatism and socialism,� said Sir Graham...

YABLOKO candidate attacked in the Perm region

Press Release, November 28, 2011

Mrs.Svetlana Ivanova, YABLOKO candidate to the MPs of the Perm region, was attacked in the Kondratovo village near Perm two hours ago. She was taken to hospital with cerebral contusion and thighbone fracture. Doctors assess her condition as critical.

At 22:30 Svetlana Ivanova was leaving the building where she met with activists. An unknown person approached her from the back, hit her on the head and disappeared. None of her personal belongings was missing.

Olga Kolokolova, leader of the party list in elections to the Legislative Assembly in Perm, and number four on YABLOKO federal list, connected the attack with Ivanova�s political activities. Kolokolova said that a large-scale campaign against YABLOKO was launched in the region. Leaflets with libel against YABLOKO candidates regularly appear in the streets. However, printing of YABLOKO campaign materials is hampered...

November 28, 2011

Internet refutes data of published public opinion polls

Press Release, November 28, 2011

About a quarter (23.7 per cent) of Russian Internet users vote for the YABLOKO party at the Russian parliamentary elections. Such data were obtained via analysis of the polls of several dozen largest Russian web sites. Over 300,000 people participated in the polls.

About 60 700 people voted at the Izbircom2011.ru voted; whereas 17.1 per cent out of the total gave their votes to YABLOKO. The Rosbalt web site polled about 55,000 voters. According to these polls, YABLOKO obtained 15 per cent. The third largest poll took place on the Sobesednik web-site (35,000 people). According to this poll YABLOKO enjoyed 27 per cent...

Former ALDE Group Leader elected ELDR President
Press Release, ALDE, November 25, 2011

Today Sir Graham Watson MEP (UK LibDem) was elected unopposed President of the party of European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) at their Congress in Palermo along with five vice-presidents (Marc Guerrero, Lousewies van der Laan, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Leoluca Orlando, Astrid Thors). Graham takes over from Annemie Neyts (Open VLD, Belgium) who has led the Party since 2005.

Taking over the reins of the party in the middle of one of the most serious crises of Europe's history giving rise to increased euro scepticism and threatening the very foundation of the EU itself will present a major challenge for the Party which believes strongly in European integration and solidarity.

Commenting on his election, Watson said:
"What Europe is lacking most of all at present is a clear vision for the future. Neither the party of the European Socialists nor the Christian Democrats offer a solution. The former is stuck with an out of date ideology and the latter is ridden by internal contradictions. As Europeans we stand or fall together. We must not give in to the rising tide of populism"...

Sir Graham Watson new ELDR President!
ELDR Press Release, November 22, 2011.

Gathered in Palermo, Italy, the ELDR Party today elected Sir Graham Watson (Liberal Democrats, UK) to its new President for the coming two years!

In his speech, drawing on great liberal thinkers from Adam Smith to Johan Norberg, Sir Graham made a strong case for the need of liberal thought in today�s Europe, and the central place for the ELDR Party in this process. He promised to make ELDR stronger, smarter and the supranational force in Europe.

The ELDR Party also elected five Vice Presidents. While Marc Guerrero (CDC, Catalonia), Lousewies van der Laan (D 66, The Netherlands) and Leoluca Orlando (IDV, Italy) were re-elected for another term; Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (FDP, Germany) and Astrid Thors (SFP, Finland) are new additions to the ELDR Party Bureau.

All candidates were warmly welcomed by some 500 European Liberals gathered in Palermo. The ELDR Party would like to extend its congratulations to all elected!

November 21, 2011

Road police tried to obstruct YABLOKO�s rally in the centre of Moscow

Press Release, November 18, 2011

Road police prohibited to a private transport company to transport participants of the rally against building of a freight airport in Stupino (a city near Moscow), threatening the company with annulment of its licence. Consequently, the participants of the rally had to go to Moscow by train being late for the rally for half an hour, also some participants were unprepared to go by train and stayed in Stupino.

Nikolai Kuznetsov, leader of the Stupino branch of YABLOKO, told that they could find a transport company only in another town, as the local companies received a ban on transportation of people to the rally...

November 18, 2011

Grigory Yavlinsky: High voter turnout will protect elections from vote-rigging

Interfax, November 16, 2011

ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 16 (Interfax) - Active involvement of voters in elections can be a barrier to the attempts to distort the results of the State Duma elections, said Grigory Yavlinsky, YABLOKO party key figure.

"If the turnout is high, the percentage of falsifications and manipulations will be much smaller," he said at the Interfax press conference in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

He added that the result for his party will also depend on the turnout - the higher the turnout, the more votes and seats YABLOKO will be able to count on.

"In case of turnout over 60 per cent, we can count on a good result," he said.

Speaking of the party ticket in St. Petersburg, Yavlinsky said that in the city his party can count on higher support than average in Russia. "We can collect 15-17 per cent in St. Petersburg," he said...

November 15, 2011

Vladimir Milov: Vote for YABLOKO!

Press Service by St.Petersburg YABLOKO, November 15, 2011

...There are many respected people on YABLOKO�s list at elections to St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, including co-Chair of the Democratic Choice Pavel Savinkin who tops territorial list No 5. I think that YABLOKO adopted a correct and estimable decision in St.Petersburg having included representatives of different oppositional forces without any preliminary conditions.

Residents of St.Petersburg, vote for YABLOKO�s list at elections to St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly on December 4! If Maxim Reznik or someone else from respected people from YABLOKO�s list will make it into the Legislative Assembly, this will help to make life of the party of thieves (the ruling United Russia). The goal is to get real opposition figures to St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly and this goal can be hit...

Grigory Yavlinsky: Once I was told: �Let them elect you first, and then we will vote for you�
It is a bad principle. People must go and vote!

Novaya Gazeta, November 7, 2011

Interview with Grigory Yavlinsky, YABLOKO leader of election list, by Andrei Lipsky and Andrei Kolesnikov

Novaya Gazeta: But will the non-democratic protest electorate not vote for the Communists and the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia)?

Yavlinsky: Yes, they will. They certainly will, and that is the problem. Open the Radio Liberty website. There is a poll: "Whom would you vote for next Sunday?" It goes approximately like this: 30% for YABLOKO, 28% "I will not vote," but 20% for the Communists.

Novaya Gazeta: The picture is approximately the same on our website.

Yavlinsky: That is the way it is going...

Novaya Gazeta: What is the nucleus of YABLOKO's electorate today and what additions can you count on from among other political forces?

November 14, 2011

YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin: "In a country with such elections participation in elections is a must"

Vedomosti, November 14, 2011

Interview with YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin by Maxim Glikin, Irina Novikova

Question: The so called tandem of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin lasted three years. Do you think this model was
efficient?
Sergei Mitrokhin: It was effective for the participants in the tandem themselves. As a PR stunt, it was superb. For Russia, however, it turned out to be a waste because it availed Russia nothing at all. This show was a success only for the showmen themselves. It accomplished its purpose. Part of society was deceived and pinned its hopes on Medvedev. Time was wasted, time that could have been spent more productively, in search for a genuine alternative to Putin that would have consolidated society.
Question: And did Yabloko have faith in Medvedev as an alternative to Putin?
Sergei Mitrokhin: Never. We were constantly asked who we liked more, Medvedev or Putin. We always replied that we liked
neither because there was no difference between them...

Mitrokhin demands that Putin should pay compensations to the victims of the explosions in Pugachyovo, Udmurtiya

Press Release, November 14, 2011

YABLOKO�s leader Sergei Mitrokhin who is now in the working visit in Udmurtia is going to demand from Prime Minister Putin to implement his promises on providing aid to the victims of explosions at a military arsenal near Pugachyovo village on June 2-3, 2011. According to the local residents who came to meet Mitrokhin, the money allotted by the government for repairs and building of new houses did not come to the village. Most

Over 60 residents came to meet Sergei Mitrokhin and Sergei Pechenin, leader of the Udmurtian branch of YABLOKO. According to the local residents, most of them did not get the compensations and repairs were too slow, consequently the village was not ready for the winter.

However the local authorities loudly announced by television that every local resident had obtained RUR 100,000 of compensation (approximately USD 3,330). People deny this telling that they have to sign falsified payment receipts on implementation of all the repair works threatening of non-paying the compensation...

Yavlinsky Calls on Russians to Take Part in Elections

Interfax, November 10, 2011

MOSCOW. Nov 10 (Interfax) - A high turnout in the upcoming parliamentary election in Russia will cut the scale of possible falsifications, Yabloko party top candidate Grigory Yavlinsky told a Thursday press conference at the Interfax main office.

"The higher turnout is and the more people take part in the ballot, the lesser falsifications will be," he said.

Yabloko is practically the only alternative to the incumbent authorities, Yavlinsky said. "Unfortunately, no other democratic parties or groups are registered - we have always said that the denial of their registration is a violation of civil rights - and there are no other representatives expressing European modern democratic political views on the voting papers. There is no one else but Yabloko," he said...

November 12, 2011

RUSSIA DEMANDS CHANGES! Electoral Program for 2011 Parliamentary Elections.

Basic guidelines for 2011- 2016. Approved by the 16th Congress of the party on September 10, 2011

OUR GOAL. The main goal of the YABLOKO party is to build via peaceful and constitutional methods a modern law-based democratic and socially oriented state serving the needs of the people and ensuring Russia�s dynamic development...
WHY ARE WE RUNNING FOR PARLIAMENT?
YABLOKO is participating in the elections to the State Duma in order to represent the interests of Russia�s citizens, adopt laws that will bring the country closer to a law-based democratic and socially oriented state and abolish all legislation that obstructs such a goal...

Time to Think, and Not to Lean on Russia. By Grigory Yavlinsky and Alexander Shishlov

The New York Times, November 8, 2011

...Yabloko has been active in Russian politics for almost 20 years. Fully aware of our responsibility to Russian citizens, who aspire to liberty and justice, our party has managed to survive and retain its potential against continuous and severe administrative pressure. Our work has been not only difficult, it has been dangerous, and in some cases fatal. Larisa Yudina, leader of the Yabloko branch in Kalmykia and a journalist, was killed; so were Farid Babayev, leader of Yabloko in Dagestan, and Yuri Shchekochikhin, a Duma deputy and investigative journalist who was investigating corruption in the secret services.

It is true that elections in Russia today are not free and fair. But this is due not only to the fact that Kasyanov�s party was denied registration and thus cannot take part in the elections. Russian elections ceased being free and fair after the presidential elections in 1996. Unfortunately, back then European liberals did not protest as loudly as they are doing now. (In fact, the electoral system was similarly defective in 2003 when Kasyanov was prime minister under President Vladimir Putin).

Today, however, this is how Russian elections are held and there are no other means for a peaceful, nonviolent change in political course and change of government. Liberals at Yabloko proceed from the premise that an outright rejection of all opportunities for peaceful change and the adoption of actions based on the principle that �it has to get worse before it gets better� is irresponsible and leads to a dead-end...

The original publication by the New York Times

November 6, 2011

RUSSIA DEMANDS CHANGES! Electoral Program for 2011 Parliamentary Elections. Announcement

Basic guidelines for 2011- 2016. Approved by the 16th Congress of the party on September 10, 2011

November 5, 2011

Russian Opposition Parties' Election Registration Difficulties Reviewed

Kommersant, October 31, 2011

The official registration period is over in 19 of the 27 regions where elections to the parliaments of components of the Russian Federation will be held at the same time as the State Duma election on 4 December. Yabloko has had more difficulty collecting signatures than the other non-parliamentary parties, and it was not allowed to run in the elections in six of the federation components where its ticket was certified. The campaign in Mordvinia, where only three parties are registered, is the most controversial one. Parties are filing suit and complaining to the Central Electoral Commission in Chuvashia and Novgorod Oblast.

In most of the regions where local parliamentary elections will be held at the same time as the Duma election, the registration of candidates has been completed (in 14 regions last Friday). At this stage of the campaign, the locations where non-parliamentary parties will be able to run in the elections are already apparent.

Yabloko was denied registration in six regions -- Ingushetia, Maritime Territory, Stavropol Territory, Amur Oblast, Moscow Oblast, and Altay Territory. Its lists of candidates were registered in four regions -- Perm Territory, Samara and Astrakhan oblasts, and St. Petersburg. The registration deadline has not arrived yet in five of the regions where the Yabloko ticket was certified -- Karelia and Leningrad, Pskov, and Omsk oblasts...

November 2, 2011

Putin Awards Opposition Journalist. By Alexander Bratersky

The Moscow Times, November 2, 2011

...But the government needs to punish the attackers to prove it is serious, said Beketov's supporters, including Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin and Yevgenia Chirikova, who heads the campaign in defense of the forest.

"If they can give Misha back his leg and the third of his brain that got smashed away, I'm all in favor," an indignant Chirikova said Tuesday, according to Gazeta.ru.

"But if this is just a way of saying, 'Oh, what a nice Misha!' by the people who have created the system that crippled him, then this is cynicism, pure and simple," she said.

Mitrokhin said by phone that he was sad the authorities didn't think about Beketov until it was too late.

"The government didn't care about him when he was lying there dying in a Khimki hospital," said Mitrokhin, who helped to transfer Beketov to a better medical facility after the attack...

The original publication by the Moscow Times

From Democracy to Freedom. The Main Task of Political Changes in Russia Is To Disparage the Plebeianism of the People and the Authorities Alike. By Alexei Melnikov.

Gazeta.ru, October 31, 2011

The thesis in liberal political circles that there is insufficient democracy in Russia is something that is obvious in itself. But the main problem, on the contrary, is the absence of aristocratism and elitism, the blending of genres, persons, and institutions.

Everything is subordinated to a kind of uniform standard based on the power of money. On this altar scientific conscientiousness, the talents of journalists, and political reputations are sacrificed. And when some kind of moneybags ascends on the political horizon, a significant part of the political community begins to shake its little wings in excitement, in the hope that the golden dust will settle on them.

In point of fact, it was in this that the main content of the "Prokhorov phenomenon" and other similar appearances of big money in Russian politics lay. This is why the general picture is painted in a single colour with different hues -instead of freely flourishing complexity, we have the emulation of plebeianism in the very worst sense of this word...

Russia clamps down on opposition before elections. By Kathy Lally

The Washington Post, October 30, 2011

...Petlin, now 38 and the only Yabloko member in the 28-seat city Duma, kept battling the shopping center. On Aug, 26, his freedom was revoked and he was taken to pretrial Detention Center No. 1, which is so overcrowded, Bashkov said, that each cell holds twice its capacity. People sleep on the floor, or take turns on the beds. Tuberculosis and hepatitis are rampant. "We are talking about innocent people who haven't been tried," he said.

A few days ago, with prosecutors still unprepared to try him, Petlin's detention was extended until Dec. 22.

"I think he had an idea about the scale of the corruption," said Petlin's wife, Tatyana, "but none of us could even imagine this"...

The original publication by the Washington Post

Boris Nadezhdin from the Right Cause calls his party to vote for YABLOKO

Press Release, October 27, 2011

Boris Nadezhdin, one of the leaders of the Right Cause party has been calling voters to vote not only for his party, but also for YABLOKO. He explained to the Firstnews that voters often said that they did not wish to vote for the Right Cause [after the scandal when the party split against tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov who had chaired the party]. "I normally answer that then they have to support YABLOKO," Nadezhdin noted...

October 2011

e-mail: english@yabloko.ru