Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
There is a war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan report hundreds of deaths. [Russia’s Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin over the phone “express concern” and urge “to prevent further escalation”.
For 28 years, Russian diplomacy have been trying to produce an impression of Moscow’s mediation in the peace process, but, judging by what is happening, could not achieve anything. Certainly, France and the United States also took part in the peace settlement. But Karabakh is very far from them, but only some 300 km to our border.
Chairman of the Yabloko Party Nikolai Rybakov will deliver lectures for participants in the All-Russian Environmental Lawyer Competition and students studying environmental law at universities in three Russian cities. The topic of the lecture is “The main environmental problems of Russia and public participation in the protection of the environmental rights of citizens: initiative groups, the media, and the Internet.”
Oleg Rodin, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, received an answer to his appeal to the Central Electoral Commission about non-recognition of the results of the elections to the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod. It follows from the answer the Central Electoral Commission that the appeal was forwarded for consideration to the Electoral Commission of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The Central Electoral Commission indicated that it intends to keep under control the consideration of this issue in the regional electoral commission.
Yury Orlov was a real hero. His whole life has been evidence of this: he participated in the war, was an outstanding physicist and, like the best people of his time, advocated human rights, gradually making it his main task in life. The Moscow Helsinki Group, of which Yury Orlov was one of the founders, not only spoke out in defence of political prisoners in the Soviet Union, but also educated people, fearlessly spoke about the sense of human dignity and freedom.
A concert in support of political prisoners was held at the Interior Theater of St. Petersburg. Musicians Maksim Leonidov, Maksim Ermachkov, Pyotr Olesov, Dmitry Podosenov, Mikhail Novitsky and others participated in the concert. The idea to hold such a concert belongs to Oleg Maksakov, Chairman of the Primorsky local branch of Yabloko in St.Petersburg and assistant to the deputy of the Legislative Assembly Boris Vishnevsky. Oleg Maksakov was also the organizer of the event.
The conference of the Krasnoyarsk branch of Yabloko elected a new leadership.
Oleg Komissarov became the successor of Oksana Demchenko, now ex Chair of the regional branch of the party who resigned. Komissarov, leader of the largest local branch of the Krasnoyarsk Yabloko in Zheleznogorsk, was elected by a majority vote on an alternative basis.
The conference of the Sverdlovsk Region branch of Yabloko nominated candidates from the democratic opposition for the by-election to the Yekaterinburg City Duma. The candidates were chosen via primaries held on the initiative of Yabloko which determined the candidates during a joint preliminary vote of Yabloko and other democratic parties and political organisations in Yekaterinburg.
On 30 September, Yuri Korgunyuk, leading researcher of the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences and head of department of Political Science of the Informatics for Democracy Foundation (INDEM), will deliver an online lecture at Yabloko’s Party University. The topic of the lecture is “Parties and party systems: trends and development prospects”. The lecture will begin at 19:00.
On 22 September, activists of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko filed several lawsuits demanding to cancel the results of early voting at dozens of city precinct electoral commissions. Also, in a number of cases, democratic candidates demand that the results of voting at polling stations on the election day 13 September be canceled. In particular, 16 lawsuits were filed by Denis Anatolyev, Yabloko’s candidate in constituency No. 19.
Photo: A polling station in the village of Kamenskoye, the city of Chernyakhovsk
On Monday, September 21, Nikolai Zyuzin, candidate from the Kaliningrad branch of Yabloko in constituency No. 18, filed a lawsuit with the Chernyakhovsky City Court to declare protocol of the electoral commission on the results of voting at one of three precincts – in the village of Kamenskoye, the city of Chernyakhovs – null and void. A discrepancy was recorded in this precinct on a single voting day, September 13: the number of ballots issued to voters exceeded the number of ballots issued by the territorial electoral commission. This gives a legal basis to challenge the results of voting in this precinct in particular and in the district as a whole.
A charitable concert in support of political prisoners will be held at the Interior Theatre (Nevsky Prospect 104) on 27 September. The concert is organised with the participation of members of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of the party and head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, will attend the concert.
At the UN General Assembly, Vladimir Putin again spoke about a multipolar world. But a “multipolar world” means that one pole will have almost the whole world, the other will include China with North Korea, and on the third pole, apart from everyone else, Russia with Lukashenko, Novichok and missiles.
On September 20, the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the Yabloko party held its conference. The conference adopted a statement “On non-recognition of the results of elections of deputies of the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod of the seventh convocation”.
The Sverdlovsk Region branch of the Yabloko party will nominate candidates from the united democratic coalition for the by-election to the Yekaterinburg Duma in Leninsky District No. 9 and Verkh-Isetsky District No. 3.
“The Bureau of the Regional Council of Yabloko has made a historic decision. We will participate in the by-elections to the Yekaterinburg City Duma, and we will determine the candidates during a joint preliminary vote with other parties and political organisations in Yekaterinburg that share our values and views,” Maxim Petlin, member of the Yabloko Federal Bureau, said.
On Monday, 21 September, Alexandr Makhankov, member of the Bureau of the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko and Chairman of the local Yabloko branch in the city of Pushkin, together with representatives of the #Khochuvpark (I Want to the Park) initiative group, submitted to the reception of the Governor of St. Petersburg a letter demanding free access of citizens to the suburban parks.
About 4,000 residents of St.Peterburg left their signatures under the demand.
On September 24, Yabloko will hold an online discussion on the progressive personal income tax: “On the inclusion of the requirement to introduce a progressive personal income tax into the party’s programme documents”.
The discussion is organised by the Social Democratic faction of the Yabloko party.
Representatives of Yabloko in Novosibirsk insist on revising the results of elections to the Novosibirsk City Council in single-mandate constituency No 35.
The local organisation of the Yaboko party forwarded an open appeal to Tamara Kratkaya, Chair of the Novosibirsk City Municipal Electoral Commission with a demand to deprive Yevgeny Yakovenko of his deputy mandate and to revise the results of elections to the City Council in single-mandate constituency No 35. Yabloko asks to remove the Chairman of the precinct electoral commission from his post, as well as the Chair of the territorial electoral commission.
The Kemerovo branch of Yabloko will take part in by-elections to the City Council of Deputies of Prokopyevsk, the Kemerovo region, which will take place on November 1. Natalya Zubkova, environmentalist and Editor-in-Chief of the independent Internet publication Novosti Kiselyovsk, became a candidate. The candidate has submitted 67 signatures of voters in her support to the district electoral commission of the single-mandate constituency No 6 and is awaiting the results of the verification of the signatures by the commission.
Photo: Lev Shlosberg, deputy of the Pskov Regional Assembly from the Yabloko faction / PLN
The reduction in the number of deputies of the Pskov Regional Assembly from 44 to 26 was discussed in the program “Day Watch” on the Echo Moskvi radio station in Pskov. Lev Shlosberg, who represents the Yabloko party in the regional parliament, expressed his opinion on this initiative.
