The 10th congress of the Yabloko Association which will transform it into a political party will take place in Moscow on December 22-23, 2001. Such a decision was adopted at a meeting of the Central Council of the Yabloko Association on Sunday November 11, 2001. The meeting was held in city of Golitsino, Moscow Region, on November 10-11, 2001, and was chaired by the leader of Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky.

The congress will discuss the draft charter of the party as well as draft programme documents. The November meeting of the Central Council was devoted to a discussion of these drafts.

The Saturday discussion on the draft charter lasted for twelve hours, and Sunday polemics on programme documents lasted for four hours. It was decided to submit the draft charter and draft programme documents to a general discussion in Yabloko.

The regional branches of the association and Yabloko members should submit their proposals, comments and amendments by December 1, 2001. The Charter Commission will consider the proposals to the draft charter on December 8-9. Chairman of the Yabloko Association Grigory Yavlinsky together with the Programme Commission was commissioned to draft the final variant of amendments and changes to the draft charter, with due account of the discussions at the Central Council.

At its next meeting on December 15-16 the Central Council will consider the final versions of draft programme documents and a draft charter and will submit them to the congress.

In addition, the Central Council confirmed the decision of the Bureau of the Central Council to register three more regional branches of the Yabloko Association: in the Taimyr Autonomous District, and the Oryol and Tomsk regions. Today Yabloko has regional branches in 65 subjects of the Russian Federation, and a number of other regional organisations will soon be registered. Representatives of Yabloko’s regional organisations also participated in the work of the Central Council in addition to the Central Council members.