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Press conference of the YABLOKO party “What has been done and will be done by YABLOKO in the Moscow City Duma” took place in the Independent Press Centre on July 14.
YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin and Chairman of the Commission on Science and Education of the Moscow City Duma Eugeni Bunimovich reported on YABLOKO’s performance in the Moscow parliament.
“Normally YABLOKO does not practice such reports, as we can not divide our activities into some formal stages. And our work goes on in summertime too,” noted Sergei Mitrokhin opening the conference. The present report is needed, as it has been a closing session of the Moscow Duma before the autumn election.
Sergei Mitrokhin singled out three main goals of the YABLOKO faction in the Moscow parliament: “We have been trying to control the bureaucracy restraining concentration of its power; we have been protecting citizens’ rights defending the citizens from the arbitrary rule of the bureaucrats and, finally, we have been abridging transfer of public municipal resources under control of some individuals and commercial structures.”
Mitrokhin also voiced the list of the most important issues the faction managed to resolve. In particular, YABLOKO’s leader said that YABLOKO had managed to persuade the Moscow government to abolish infill construction, develop and adopt Moscow law “On Ombudsman”, achieve that capital repairs of Moscow buildings be covered from the Moscow budget rather than by apartments owners, as well as “stop the reduction of natural preservation zones in Moscow” and “stop monetization of allowances on housing and communal services in Moscow in the situation of crisis and high inflation” (Ed. Such allowances represent a discount from housing and communal services payments, “monetization” aimed at giving a scanty money “equivalent” of such in kind allowance which could be reduced to nothing by crisis and inflation).
“We managed to solve these and other issues due to our strategy of a dialogue with the authorities,” said Mitrokhin. “In spite of the fact that we severely criticized the executive authority, we did not abolish our dialogue with it,” added Mitrokhin noting that this tactics was successful and will be applied further.
Also, according to Mitrokhin the YABLOKO faction introduced about a thousand amendments to draft laws.
The faction received over 2,726 requests from the citizens and forwarded 373 deputy inquiries and over 7,000 appeals for protection of citizens’ rights.
Eugeni Bunimovich told that YABLOKO was an obvious leader among other factions of the Moscow Duma. According to Bunimovich, if assessing the performance of the faction from the statistical point of view, the number of draft laws and amendments proposed by YABLOKO faction is divisible by the number of its members.
Bunimovich also warned against separation of the performance of the faction from that of the party. As, for exmale, renowned human rights activists participated in the development of the Moscow law “On Ombudsman for Moscow” (the working group was headed by Bunimovich). Bunimovich also said that many of YABLOKO’s initiatives were grasped or “consolidated” by the ruling United Russia party. Such were the city law on libraries, the initiative on paying compensations to the families sending their children to private kindergartens, fight against building of casinos at proximity of schools which resulted in a full-scale ousting of this business into special zones.
YABLOKO members of the Youth Chamber at the Moscow City Duma also reported on their performance. Ivan Bolshakov, Alexander Gnezdilov and Semyon Burd told about their work in this advisory body. For 28 months of functioning of the Chamber, they managed to introduce 153 amendments into draft federal and municipal laws and special programmes; whereas 31 amendment was adopted. The young members of YABLOKO think their main achievements are as follows: development of a concept for improvement of living conditions of young families, introduction of discounts for the young people in payment for the use of cultural and sports facilities, fight against extremism and xenophobia and prohibition of advertising of vodka in the Moscow metro.
In conclusion Sergei Mitrokhin answered journalists’ questions and confirmed that YABLOKO was forming a coalition for the forthcoming Moscow City Duma election. According to Mitrokhin, “negotiations with all the political forces striving to change the situation in Moscow” will be held until July 20, when a conference of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO will propose its list of candidates.
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