Author: Viktor Khamrayev

The Yabloko party will compete in the Duma and presidential elections, in order to provide Russian citizens with “an alternative to the existing authoritarian system,” and its presidential candidate will be party leader Grigori Yavlinsky. Yabloko’s federal council made these decisions over the weekend.

“Some things are more important than the Duma,” said Yabloko’s perennial leader, Grigori Yavlinsky, at the start of his speech yesterday. This was reminiscent of what he said a year ago at the Yabloko congress which decided whether Yabloko should merge with other pro-democracy parties, or become a pro-Kremlin party, “for the sake of making it into the Duma.” As Yavlinsky noted, Yabloko hasn’t done either of those things. In the meantime, Russia has witnessed “authoritarian reforms” which have “turned elections into a simulation” that leaves opposition parties with practically no chance at all. But even in these conditions, said Yavlinsky, parties should not boycott elections; they should participate, so that voters can see “an alternative to the existing authoritarian-oligarchic and nationalist regime.” Yavlinsky’s alternative vision of the problems Russia faces and how they can be solved is set out in Yabloko’s new policy program, entitled “Seven Steps to Equal Opportunities.”

According to Yavlinsky, this policy program will give Yabloko “a chance” to compete successfully in the elections, but in order to do this, Yabloko must remain “a democratic opposition party” – the only such party in Russia. Yavlinsky explained that there are some “Kremlin projects” that simulate pro-democracy parties; and there is the Union of Right Forces (SPS), which has chosen a path “that makes it impossible for this party to be in opposition to the Kremlin.”

There is also the Other Russia coalition; in Yavlinsky’s view, the organizations which are the public face of the Other Russia have turned it into “a totalitarian cult.” Against this backdrop, says Yavlinsky, Yabloko “should be as honest as possible with voters, stating clearly and distinctly that we are against Putin, against his policies – domestic policies and foreign policy alike.”

Yavlinsky’s hour-long speech was followed by an extensive discussion. Nobody called for an election boycott – not even after Yavlinsky and his deputy, Sergei Ivanenko, related how Kremlin officials had tried to persuade them to stay out of the elections, promising stable funding in return.

The discussion intensified when the talk turned to Yabloko’s relations with other opposition forces – especially the Other Russia. Delegates from Yabloko’s St. Petersburg branch and the youth wing insisted that Yabloko should participate in the Dissenter March protests organized by the Other Russia. But most Yabloko activists described the marches where Yabloko’s banners are carried alongside “imperialist and neo-Nazi banners” as “an act of provocation against the party.” Yavlinsky said that in their speeches at rallies, the Other Russia’s leaders – particularly Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov – “are wiping their feet on us.” He identified the Other Russia’s major problem: Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party and the radical communists from the Red Youth Vanguard are becoming the coalition’s “calling card.” Yabloko’s federal council agreed that the only acceptable form of cooperation with the Other Russia should be confined to social protest rallies.

Yabloko’s goal for the presidential election is the same: “to prevent democracy from being discredited.” Yavlinsky dismissed as absurd the idea that former Central Bank chairman Viktor Gerashchenko or Soviet-era dissident Vladimir Bukovsky should run for president. Yabloko’s meeting did not discuss or criticize the candidacy of former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Yavlinsky only said that there had been some negotiations about the possibility of Kasyanov joining Yabloko, but as soon as Kasyanov realized that there was no possibility of him becoming the party leader, he chose a different path. Eventually, the Yabloko federal council identified Yavlinsky as the most suitable presidential candidate for Yabloko.

Yavlinsky noted that the final decision will be made by a party congress, and didn’t rule out the possibility of someone else becoming the Yabloko candidate. “I know at least two people who could be candidates,” he said, without naming names.

The “Seven Steps to Equal Opportunities” program identifies present-day Russia’s seven major problems as follows: authoritarian, bureaucratic-corporate, clan-oligarchic government; dependence on raw materials; the persistence of widespread poverty; widespread denial of civil rights; ongoing criminal privatization; the prospect of Russia falling behind and becoming a Third World country; and the looming threat of a systemic crisis, social upheaval, and the disintegration of the state. Yabloko proposes to fight this by means of the following measures: restoring the foundations of democracy, reforming the state apparatus, separating business and government; recognizing the state’s debt to society, and private property rights; supporting business ownership; wage reforms and guaranteed labor rights; guarantees for small property owners; reining in the monopolies; investing in education, the environment, and health care.

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Translated by Elena Leonova
Johnson’s Russia List
2007-#136
17 June 2007
A World Security Institute Project
www.worldsecurityinstitute.org