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President Medvedev supported a number of YABLOKO’s initiatives

Press Release

February 15, 2012

A meeting of leaders of registered political parties with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has just finished. The key issue of the meeting was discussion of the political reform. The YABLOKO party was represented by Sergei Mitrokhin, YABLOKO Chairman, and Sergei Ivanenko, Political Committee member.

Sergei Mitrokhin handed to President Medvedev a list of demands put forward by participants of the demonstration and rally of February 4, including the general resolution of the rally, the resolution demanding registration of Grigory Yavlinsky in the presidential election campaign and the list of political prisoners.

YABLOKO leader also draw the attention to political prisoner Maxim Petlin, leader of the Sverdlovsk region branch of YABLOKO, still kept in jail. Sergei Mitrokhin showed to the head of state a document which had launched political reprisals against Petlin - a court order, which had given a permission to the FSB (Federal Security Service) to monitor Petlin’s telephone conversations, read his correspondence and keep him under surveillance.

Mitrokhin also handed to the President a list of refusals from the courts to examine YABLOKO’s suits on election fraud. "The courts are very negligent as regards our suits, they do not consider them in essence, and judges try to prove that black is white and vise versa,", Mitrokhin told to President Medvedev. According to Mitrokhin, "it is impossible to seek justice in courts”.

Speaking about the political reform, representatives of the YABLOKO party expressed their satisfaction with reduction of the threashold on the number of members for political parties. However, they also noted that the Ministry of Justice should not audit the number of party members.

Mitrokhin also stressed that representatives of political parties should be entitled to send their representatives with the right of decisive vote to electoral commissions of all levels. He added that 77 per cent of YABLOKO’s candidates to district electoral commissions were turned down.

As regards the return of gubernatorial elections, YABLOKO’s representatives proposed to reduce the gubernatorial term. Mitrokhin drew special attention of President Medvedev to Moscow and St. Petersburg, as their residents can not elect mayors, as in other cities. However, the President said that this was impossible "due to legal grounds."

YABLOKO leader also proposed to establish a working group for development of a draft law "On Elections to the State Duma." Dmitry Medvedev answered that he was going to submit the law right now, but the working group would be able to influence amendments to the draft law.

The President supported YABLOKO’s proposal on differentiation of criminal responsibility for election fraud.

 

See also:

Presidential Elections 2012

State Duma Elections 2011

Gubernatorial Elections

Human Rights

 

 

 

 

Press Release

February 15, 2012

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