Is
Modernisation in Russia Possible? Interview
with Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Titov by Yury Pronko,
"The Real Time" programme, Radio Finam, May
12, 2010
Representatives of Yabloko handed over to the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission a set of documents required to certify the list of Yabloko candidates for deputies to the St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
When submitting documents to the St.Petersburg Electoral Commission, the top candidates of the party list were present: Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of the party faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Alexander Shishlov, Ombudsman in St. Petersburg, Olga Shtannikova, head of the Ombudsman’s Office and member of the Yabloko Arbitration, and ex-head of the St.Petersburg municipal district Grazhdanka, Olga Pokrovskaya, member of the St.Peterburg Electoral Commission from Yabloko and Chair of the Party Arbitration, as well as members of the Party’s Federal Bureau Anatoly Golov and Olga Tsepilova.
Photo: Chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev and Chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin. Photo: by Dmitry Azarov / Kommersant
The Supreme Court dismissed the administrative law suit of the Yabloko party against the Central Electoral Commission regarding the cancellation of public video broadcasting from polling stations. The Supreme Court did not assess whether the actions of the Central Electoral Commission were in line with the Constitution of the RF.
In connection with large-scale forest fires and smoke pollution of settlements in Yakutia, the Yabloko party demands to introduce an emergency regime completely throughout the Republic, and not only in the regional forests (which was done by the decree of the head of Yakutia).
We demand from the country’s leadership to allocate additional funds from the federal budget to fight forest fires in the Republic. It is impossible to defeat fires of this magnitude by collecting donations from the population.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov / Photo by Dmitry Lebedev, Kommersant
Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Electoral Commission, labelled Yabloko’s law suit against the Central Electoral Commission in the Supreme Court demanding to provide public broadcasts from polling stations on voting days as “petty and mean”. Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov answers the head of the Central Electoral Commission:
– The duty of the Central Electoral Commission is to ensure fair and transparent elections, including the voting and the counting of votes. If there are no resources, there is no need to hold a vote in three days, tripling the costs of the work of members of electoral commissions.
The Yabloko party filed an administrative lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the recognition of the Central Electoral Commission’s decision on cancelling public broadcasts from polling stations during elections of the State Duma deputies inappropriate to the law. On 14 July, the Central Electoral Commission decided to abandon public broadcasts from polling stations on voting days which, according to Yabloko, would hamper observation in the elections.
The election observation institute is designed to ensure citizens’ confidence in the election results and the institutions of representative democracy resulting from elections, the lawsuit runs.
On 16 July, a conference of the Gender faction of the Yabloko party was held. The conferences elected faction heads and the Council. Galina Mikhaleva, Chair of the faction, marked in her report the creation of branches of the faction in a number of regions and an increased interest in gender issues, as well as an increase in the number of women-candidates and heads of regional branches. The conference was greeted by the Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and the head of the Yabloko Green Russia faction Olga Tzepilova.
Photo: Nikolai Rybakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
Сhairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov appealed to Vladimir Putin with a demand to introduce a two-week lockdown and take a number of urgent measures to support the economy and the population. Nikolai Rybakov noted that Russia is rated third in the world after India and Indonesia as of daily mortality rates from coronavirus. Rybakov also recalled that 791 people died from COVID-19 in Russia on 15 July and the number of deaths has been growing every day, while the measures taken by the government to restrict the epidemic are insufficient.
Yabloko colleagues from sister parties and organisations from ten countries expressed their words of support and hope for the victory of the party in the upcoming elections to the State Duma. They sent their greetings and good wishes in the addresses that were broadcast at the Yabloko pre-election congress on July 3-4.
In his speech, Nikolai Rybakov thanked the Congress delegates, Grigory Yavlinsky and party members for their trust. “Russian politics lacks a lot, but most importantly, it lacks humanity and sincerity, as well as the belief that ordinary people can succeed in politics in our country,” Rybakov said.
Photo: Ivan Bolshakov / Photo by the Yabloko press service
According to Ivan Bolshakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, the party is going to run in the elections with a challenging programme raising the problems that no one else dared to.
“We demand an investigation into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the attempt on the life of opposition politicians and journalists, release of all political prisoners, prohibition of private military campaigns, lifting of the food embargo and restrictions on the purchase of foreign drugs and medical equipment [imposed by the Russian government on its own population],” Bolshakov said.
Photo: Boris Vishnevsky / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service
The meaning of all Russian laws of recent months is the criminalisation of political activity, any criticism of the government and its policies is declared criminal – this is something that has not happened since the USSR, says Boris Vishnevsky, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of the party’s faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg.
Full video recording of Grigory Yavlinsky’s speech
Regional groups of the federal list of candidates from the Yabloko party in the elections to the State Duma will be topped by young people under 40. The federal part of the list of Yabloko candidates will consist of one candidate – party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov. The territory of Russia is divided into equal electoral districts so that success of candidates to the Duma depends solely on the effectiveness of their work during the election campaign.
Appeal of the Federal Bureau of the Yabloko Party to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin
Respected Mikhail Vladimirovich,
In the situation of the obvious “third wave” of the coronavirus pandemic, measures for protection of citizens from the disease, and first of all, their vaccination, come on the forefront.
Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov turned to he Public Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov with a demand to identify and punish those who took the decision to conduct in St.Petersburg a gala party Scarlet Sails for students finishing school in the midst of the epidemic.
According to the St. Petersburg Committee on Education, more than 40,000 people took part in the event. Numerous photos and video materials of the media indicate that social distancing and masking were not observed at the Scarlet Sails party.
According to Novaya Gazeta, the police dragged a handcuffed woman out of the building of the Multifunctional Public Services Centre on the asphalt and left her lying in the street unconscious before taking her to the police station. However, the woman told to the police officers that her daughter was waiting for her in the car.
Photo: The Mercury Tower in the Moscow City (the golden building to the right). Photo by shellexx/Depositphotos.com
This weekend, 3-4 July, a congress of the Yabloko party, that will nominate the party candidates for the Russian parliamentary elections, will take place in Moscow.
The meeting on 3 July will be closed to journalists. The party’s Youtube channel will broadcast political reports delivered by Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and Chairman of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky. The meeting starts at 10:00 a.m.
On 29 June, a meeting between Yabloko party Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and the PACE delegation led by PACE co-rapporteurs Axel Schäfer (Germany, SOC) and Ria Oomen-Ruijten (Netherlands, EPP/CD) took place in the Moscow office of Yabloko. The delegation is in Russia on a mission to assess the pre-election situation, preparations for the elections to the State Duma, and Russia’s fulfillment of its obligations on ensuring free and fair elections. The mission is carried out in accordance with the norms and procedures adopted by the Council of Europe for its member states, and the obligations taken up by the member states of the Council of Europe.
Photo: June 16, 2021. From left to right: Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of the Swiss Confederation Guy Parmelin and US President Joe Biden at the Villa La Grange in Geneva. Photo by Sergei Guneyev / RIA Novosti
The Geneva summit ended as expected without any significant breakthroughs. Ambassadors will be able to return to their places of work in Moscow and Washington, consultations will continue, mass media will find out who “won” in the negotiations, both sides will deal with nuclear security and the START treaty, and possibly even create some working groups to discuss cybersecurity issues.
Indeed, no one expected breakthroughs. The Presidents of Russia and the United States met primarily in order to meet. Such PR is useful for both Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden. Well, why not, at the same time, talk in the “realpolitik” format about common and different positions on such important topics as nuclear security, arms control, cybercrime, Iran and Afghanistan? After the summit, many noted that Vladimir Putin got what he wanted from the meeting – he emphasized his importance without compromising anything. And so it is.
Statement by the Yabloko Gender Faction, 15.06.2021
Photo: Halimat Taramova / screenshot of the publication on Svetlana Anokhina’s Instagram page
On 10 June, Chechen and Dagestan security forces broke into a crisis centre in Makhachkala, Dagestan, kidnapping Khalimat Taramova and her girlfriend Anna Manylova (the latter was later released). Human rights defender Svetlana Anokhina and volunteers of the crisis center were detained together with them.
On 16 June, Yelena Sorokina, the head of the Ryazan city administration, said that “unfortunately, the number of cases of coronavirus infection has not been decreasing in the city,” and asked “the heads of Ryazan enterprises to think over the ways of encouraging, for example, granting days off, to employees who took part in the vaccination”.
At the same time, Sorokina did not say anything about the quality of the vaccination campaign. The Ryazan branch of Yabloko notes that the credibility of this procedure has been seriously undermined by its bad organisation, which raises concerns among city residents.
