Press Release, 15.12.2019

Nikolai Rybakov became the fourth Chairman of the Yabloko party: 69 delegates of the 21st Yabloko Congress cast their votes for his candidacy. Lev Shlosberg, head of the Pskov branch of the party Lev Shlosberg came second (40 votes), Emilia Slabunova was the third (19 votes).

Other candidates for the Chairman of the party – Oleg Vinogradov, Chairman of the Yaroslavl branch of Yabloko and Oleg Novikov, representative of the Moscow branch of the party,  got two votes each.

To win the first round, the winner needed to get 67 votes out of 132.

In his speech Nikolai Rybakov spoke of his dream, “I want our country, Russia, to be a space of freedom and creativity, oriented on serving people. I have a dream about our party. I want young people coming to Yabloko, as I came at age 16, to be proud of the party. We should not be ashamed of any of our actions, not a single political decision.”

Rybakov said that main problem the party should overcome would be dealing with disbelief of some of its members in their own strength. He also spoke of the need to overcome differences between generations in the party. “We just need to do this smartly, kindly, and without losing Yabloko,” Rybakov emphasised.

Rybakov also reported on his main achievements on the post of Deputy Chairman of the party, which he has held since December 2015. This includes the development of the Digital Party, a unique platform that no other party in Russia has, and the holding of nationwide campaigns, such as Time to Return Home and The New Budget Policy, and the victory of all the party candidates in the Moscow City Duma elections this autumn.

Nikolai Rybakov thanked the citizens who participated in the street actions demanding from the authorities to allow independent candidates to run in the election. Rybakov stressed that he would continue to fight for the release of the defendants of the so-called “Moscow riots” case. He recalled that it was Yabloko that came up with the Metropiket idea, picketing for the release of political prisoners, which takes place every Friday by Moscow metro stations.

At the request of Rybakov, all the delegates of the Yabloko congress – over a hundred people – made a flashmob action raising posters over their heads demanding the release of political prisoners.

“I often think about what we need to do in order to be effective and modern. We need to spread our wings! It is necessary to introduce new approaches to work. To make the staff of the headquarters more efficient, organise project work, and develop procedures for internal party democracy. Together we will change and win! ” Rybakov said in the concluding part of his speech.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov, Sergei Ivanenko, Emilia Slabunova, Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Misnik and Alexander Gnezdilov

After announcing the voting results, Nikolai Rybakov thanked the delegates for their support and expressed special gratitude to Emilia Slabunova, his predecessor on the post of the party Chair, and Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the party, “Dear friends, thank you for the trust and support that I feel from you. I will not let you down. I hope we will work together for many years. I want each of you to win, feel respect for yourself and be in demand. I would like to express my special thanks to Grigory Alekseyevich Yavlinsky. You let us learn and develop, open the way for us into the future. Thank you, Grigory Alekseyevich!”

“I would like to thank you for your perseverance and the opportunity to work together with you. And I hope that we will work together with you for many more years, Emilia Edgardovna [Slabunova]! Thank you very much!”, Rybakov told to Emilia Slabunova.

Nikolai Rybakov was born in Leningrad (now St.Petersburg) in 1978. In 2000, he graduated with honours from the Economics Department of St. Petersburg State University of Railway Engineering. In the same year he was elected deputy of the Svetlanovskoye Municipal Council, where he became Deputy Chairman of the Council and Chairman of the Budget and Finance Commission. In 2004 he became deputy of the Grazhdanka municipality. In 2006 he became head of the Administration of this municipality.

In 2008-2015, Rybakov was head of the Bellona Environmental Human Rights Centre and was Editor of the Ecology and Law journal. Since 2011 he has been member of the Board of the Centre for Anti-Corruption Research and Initiatives of Transparency International.

Since 1995, Nikolai Rybakov has been member of the Yabloko party. In 2015, he put forward his candidacy for the post of Chairman of the Yabloko party, and came third. At the same congress, Rybakov was elected one of the three Deputy Chairmen of the party.

In 2017, Nikolai Rybakov headed the Yabloko Election Headquarters. The largest campaigns that took place under his leadership were the presidential campaign of Grigory Yavlinsky (in 2018), and elections to the Moscow City Duma (in 2019).

Nikolai Rybakov is a permanent expert on political programmes on federal television channels, an environmental advocate, and member of the Green Russia faction.

The first Chairman of Yabloko was Grigory Yavlinsky who headed the party until 2008. In 2008-2015, Sergei Mitrokhin was Yabloko Chairman for two terms. Since December 2015, Yabloko was headed by Emilia Slabunova, MP of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia.