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YABLOKO’s leader on the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly

Based on Russian media reports
December 1, 2010

YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin expressed his disappointment with Presidential Address to the Russian parliament, as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev virtually failed to propose any measures in the field of political reform.

“He did not say a word about the “glorified” United Russia party and nothing was proposed in the field of political reform, however, in an earlier statement the President had noted that without such a reform we would not be able to overcome the signs stagnation,” Mitrokhin said.

“Only cosmetic changes has taken place; whereas inequality of the parties that will run in the parliamentary elections has been maintained. In addition, the past regional and municipal elections demonstrated that election fraud did not reduce at all,” he noted.

“Obviously it was decided that the political reform had been generally conducted. Small cosmetic measures undertaken in accordance with the previous [presidential] addresses were announced be a comprehensive political reform and acknowledged sufficient. Most likely, nothing will be done here anymore,” stated YABLOKO’s leader.

Mitrokhin also highlighted President’s proposal on introduction of a proportional system at local elections, which, according to Mitrokhin, is beneficial for the parties. However, Mitrokhin said added that this proposal was “an intrusion into the competence of local self-governing.” “Once again the state is imposing some scheme onto [the local self-governing], which should solve the tasks that are not connected with local self-governing at all. This demonstrates a deeply rooted misunderstanding by the state of what local self-governing is about. Local self-governing once again suffers from the state compulsion,” added Mitrokhin.

The part of the Presidential Address referring to the economic development of the state left YABLOKO’s leader in bewilderment.

“The emphasis is laid on low energy efficiency and that’s it; nothing has been said about other problems. However, in our view, the key problems are huge energy dependency and merger of the government with business in managing the economy,” Mitrokhin stated.

Speaking about the positive aspects of the Address, Mitrokhin noted that he supported “everything that President was saying about the need to take care of children and future generations”. “At the same time the UN convention on the rights of the child has not been implemented in Russia, which has been recently marked by the Committee on the Rights of the Children,” he added. According to Mitrokhin, implementation of presidential initiatives is directly linked with a political reform: “without this social problems will be left unsolved”.

However, YABLOKO’s leader supported the initiative of the head of the state on creation of a joint Russian-European antiballistic missile defence system.

 

See also:

Modernisation in Russia

Human Rights

Social policies

 

 

 

December 1, 2010

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