Press Release, 27.04.2018

On the threashold of the start of the primaries in Yabloko, that have to determine Yabloko’s  candidate for the Mayor of Moscow in the forthcoming mayoral elections, the party held a round table devoted to the programme of transformations of the political system in Moscow. The round table was held in the party’s office on 26 April. The main conclusion of the discussion was as follows: a candidate from Yabloko would seek to liberalise the system of the city governing and transfer of the powers to local self-government.

The round table was attended by Sergei Mitrokhin, one of the likely candidates for Mayor of Moscow and ex party Chair, Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the Federal Political Committee of the party, Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko, municipal deputies Mikhail Menshikov and Andrei Morev, politician Maxim Kruglov and others.

The organiser of the event was Kirill Gontcharov, member of the Moscow Regional Council of the Yabloko party.

Despite heated debate on certain issues, the round table participants agreed that the main priority was the change in the electoral system in the capital of Russia, which required cancellation of the municipal filter in the elections (mandatory collection of signatures of municipal deputies by candidates to the post of Mayor). Grigory Yavlinsky said that Yabloko could hold a wide campaign in the city for the abolition of artificial restrictions on participation in the election of the heads of subjects of the federation.

According to the politician, the intention to seek cancellation of the municipal filter should become a mandatory item of the programme of a candidate for the post of Moscow Mayor from Yabloko, and the election campaign itself would provide an opportune moment to raise this issue to the residents of the city.

Other important goals included expansion of the powers of district councils of deputies, as well as  strengthening of the role of the Moscow City Duma and increase in the number of its deputies (currently there are only 45 deputies elected form the city with over 12 million residents). Sergei Mitrokhin, one of the candidates to post of Mayor and leader of the Moscow Yabloko, spoke about the his programme devoted to changing the lower level of the administrative system. In particular, the leader of the Moscow Yabloko proposed to abolish district administrations, reduce the proxies and the staff of  district prefects’ officies, delegating a number of their functions to municipal deputies. According to Mitrokhin, the result should be a significant expansion of local self-government and “re-creation of feedback from the city authorities and residents from the ground up.”

It was also noted that Yabloko should, during its campaigns, communicate to the Muscovites the connection between individual economic problems and the inefficient political system in Moscow.

It should be also noted that on 25 April, the Federal Bureau of the party decided to hold primaries for the election of Yabloko’s candidate for the post of the Moscow Mayor. Nomination of participants in the preliminary voting will start on 15 May.