Press Release, June 13, 2013

The Conference of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO nominated Sergei Mitrokhin to run in the Moscow mayoral elections. He was nominated unanimously be the delegates of the conference.

Sergei Mitrokhin, Chair of YABLOKO

Grigory Yavlinsky, YABLOKO founder, also spoke in support of the candidate. “I think that we are nominating the strongest candidate for the Mayor. He has had experience of political work in Moscow, long experience in the Moscow City Duma and for ten years he was a deputy of the State Duma,” Yavlinsky said. According to him, Mitrokhin is familiar with the problems of the city budget, problems of the residents and with Moscow problems in general. “Mitrokhin is the only politician who all these years have been devoting much of his time to defending the interests of Muscovites from arbitrariness of officials and business,” Yavlinsky stressed. “It feels and understands the municipal and the federal policy, and he relies on a large team of experts”, he said.

Dr. Grigory Yavlinsky, founder of YABLOKO, member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee and Sergei Mitrokhin, Chair of YABLOKO

Yavlinsky also noted that “other candidates can not be compared with Mitrokhin, because they have not had the slightest experience in Moscow”.

In his speech Sergei Mitrokhin presented to the delegates of the conference and the press abstracts from his election programme entitled “The Moscow Authorities Should Be Put Under Muscovites’ Control.”

Mitrokhin said that his primary purpose as Mayor of Moscow would be “transform the existing bureaucracy and turn it to face the people so that it would begin serving Muscovites rather than itself”.

One of the first steps of the future Mayor would be re-election of the Moscow City Duma. Mitrokhin said that this was Muscovites’s demand when they came out on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Prospect. After re-election of the Moscow City Duma, its proxies should be broadened. The Moscow City Duma should approve the privatisation programme, different short-term and long-term programmes, approve the waiting list for municipal housing and be much more involved in the issues relating to housing and utilities sector and formation of its tariffs.

According to Mitrokhin, all key positions in the government have to be approved by the Moscow City Duma; whereas accountability of the Mayor and heads of all the departments should be increased.

On a district level, Sergei Mitrokhin proposed to “eliminate dual power”, i.e. “abolish the district councils and transfer their proxies to municipalities”.

Mitrokhin also said that fight against corruption should start with examination and probe of all of the Moscow legislation and regulations for corruption. Laws and government regulations contain abundance of norms allowing to the officials to dispose of huge resources without any control, Mitrokhin noted.

Galina Mikhaleva, First Deputy Chair of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO, Mikhail Petrov, Secretary of the Regional Council, Sergei Mitrokhin, Grigory Yavlinsky

The problem of illegal migration is also related to corruption, this problem can be solved only through complete transparency of those entities that attract labour force to Moscow. The main such entity is the Moscow government, he said.

Transparency of monopolies and management companies will allow redirecting these funds for reconstruction of utilities networks.

Sergei Mitrokhin stated his intention to freeze all the road projects started by ex Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin that caused protests of Muscovites and to check their feasibility studies. Among other priority measures in the field of urban planning he mentioned adoption of a new General Plan of the city. It should be developed with participation of international experts and adopted at real public hearings by all Muscovites.

According to Mitrokhin, the priorities of the new General Plan should be as follows: social housing, limiting the density and height of the buildings, restrictions on commercial housing, development of open spaces, green areas and preservation of the historic city centre.

Moscow should become the world centre of the knowledge-based economy, said Sergei Mitrokhin in conclusion.

The Conference unanimously approved his theses of the election program. It was decided not to close the conference, but to hold one more stage of the conference where the delegates would discuss and adopt the full version of the election program.