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Ekaterinburg, April 2, 2002. Today the leader of the YABLOKO
party Grigory Yavlinsky will hold a number of meetings with the
electorate in Nizhni Tagil and Novouralsk. According to information
from the press service of the regional branch of the party, at
a press conference Yavlinsky declared yesterday that YABLOKO had
still not learned how to work with its potential electorate and
therefore received insufficient support during elections. Yavlinsky
also noted that he was not granted any access to television channels,
and that it was very difficult to raise the party ratings without
television. Therefore, one of the goals of YABLOKO is to create
public television in Russia, which will be financed from independent
sources and a nation-wide YABLOKO newspaper.
According to Yavlinsky, in Moscow the federal authorities have
established silent censorship on all the basic web-based and print
media. The leader of YABLOKO also thinks that Sverdlovsk region
enjoys a greater degree of freedom of speech, explaining: "This
is attributable to the struggle between the governor of Sverdlovsk
region Eduard Rossel and the mayor of Ekaterinburg Arkady Chernetsky
in the Central Urals. That is why the media market in this region
has not been monopolised by any of the political forces."
Yavlinsky also opposed the decision of Eduard Rossel to run for
a third term at the forthcoming gubernatorial elections. "I
am against a third term of office for all governors", said
Yavlinsky. "Even if the person occupying such a post does
not steal himself, the structures subordinate to him "stagnate".
The Constitution stipulated only for two terms of office for governors."
The leader of YABLOKO arrived to the Urals on the threshold of
the elections to the regional duma scheduled for April 14. However,
Yavlinsky said that the main goal of the visit is to prepare for
the 2003 elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
See also:
API (Ekaterinburg). YABLOKO's leader
against a third term of office for governors in Russia. April
2, 2002
Freedom
of Speech and Media Law in Russia
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