Press release, 20.01.2018

On 19 January, presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky had a meeting with Yabloko heads of municipal districts and municipal deputies  in Moscow.

At the moment Yabloko is the second largest political force in Moscow’s municipalities after the ruling United Russia party. Yabloko has 189 deputies having a majority in 10 districts. Five municipal districts are headed by Yabloko’s representatives.

According to Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova, the municipal policy should be based on the interests of the citizens. Moreover, municipal deputies must be accountable to the citizens. Finally, budgetary funds must be only used in favour of the residents and social capital development.

The deputies told Yavlinsky about the main issues they have to face and discussed with him the compound means to deal with those issues.

In his speech Yavlinsky stated that local self government “has turned into fiction – people around the country have no rights to decide how to organise their life: what view they want to see from the window, the way schools and hospitals should function, security issues and many other things concerning local self-government.”

“Only people themselves know how their life should be organised. They support the country with their taxes. However, now the system functions so that allocating some money to plant a few flowers and trees and to employ a concierge is perceived as a favour on behalf of the officials, and everyone must be grateful,” he said. According to Yavlinsky, only 0.3 per cent of  tax revenue is allocated to the municipalities in Moscow.

Yavlinsky allocated the responsibility for the present system of lawlessness to Vladimir Putin. “The absence of rights leads to corruption and lies because only citizens who can control the government can fight lies and corruption,” he explained.

Yabloko has developed amendments to the law on local self-government that will return funding and power to the municipalities. However, the perspectives of the amendments depend on the results of the presidential elections.