| The Congress of the Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO
demonstrates that it is maintaining its image and position.
The opening of the congress witnessed a scandal. YABLOKO Without Yavlinsky
represented by Igor Morozov and several dozen young people, most of them
who were clearly inebriated, came to the Russian Academy of the State
Service, where the congress was held. When the leader of the youth organisation
of YABLOKO Ilya Yashin tried to push the crowd away from the television
cameras, Morozov did not mince his words and threatened Yashin with physical
reprisal. The police meanwhile pressed the 350 delegates and guests of
the congress into the hall, where the leader of the party Grigory
Yavlinsky opened the congress with his political report.
Noting obvious economic successes of Russia this year Chairman of YABLOKO,
however, characterised the developments in the country as typical of a
country which is lagging behind. It should be noted that this is at least
the third new definition (after the "periphery capitalism" and
"authoritarian bureaucratic system") used by Yavlinsky to try
and raise public and academic debate. The report also provided a division
of political forces in Russia which is alternative to the traditional
division into "left", "right" and "centrists":
"communists and nationalists who have a notion of the past, but not
of the future"; the right-wing "expressing the interests of
the narrow group of the richest"; the party of the power "striving
to preserve the status-quo"; and democrats, i.e. YABLOKO.
According to Yavlinsky, the party is going to elections acknowledging
that the elections cannot be recognised as quite free and independent,
as they fall under the significan influence of administrative resources.
A political scientist would note at once how far this definition differs
from that announced at the CPRF congress that the coming elections will
be falsified. It is worth highlighting the following initiatives that
were announced by YABLOKO before the congress: a tax amnesty to legalise
capital and the introduction of a single social allowance providing a
subsistence minimum for all the needy.
The approval by the congress of the federal and single-mandate list
of candidates was the central moment of the congress. Yavlinsky noted
that all eleven congresses of the party were open, even this one discussing
the candidates. At the same time on the threshold of the congress the
press service told our correspondent that the meeting would only be open for
the report of the leader and then the press would only be allowed to attend
the briefing.
Igor Artemyev, Deputy
Chairman of the Credit Committee of the Duma and former Vice-Governor
of St. Petersburg, was the third candidate of the federal list of YABLOKO
after Yavlinsky and Vladimir
Lukin. Positions from four eight were given to present deputies of
the faction Sergei Mitrokhin,
Aelxei Arbatov, Alxander
Shishlov, Viktor Kuschenko,
Alexei Melnikov and Alexei
Zakharov.
The ninth place was given to writer and publicist, one of the party
intellectual leaders Boris
Vishnevsky. The tenth place was given to Deputy Finance Minister Mikhail
Motorin (in 1995 he was a candidate in a single-mandate district in Moscow,
and in 1997 he took up a post in the Finance Ministry together with Mikhail
Zadornov). The eleventh and twelveth places are taken by Konstantin Kogalovsky,
Vice-President of YUKOS-Moscow company and Galina Antonova, Director of
the Financial Department of YUKOS. The thirteenth place was given to Alexander
Osovtsev who joined YABLOKO from the post of Chairman of the SPS Executive
Committee. The fourteenth place is held by a Deputy of the State Duma
of the second convocation Sergei Don. Sixteenth place is taken by Marina
Synkovskaya, Deputy Plenipotentiary of the President of the RF in the
Siberian Federal District.
The final seventeenth place was given to a representative of the St.
Petersburg regional branch of YABLOKO Andrei Tzarikovsky. And Sergei Kovalyov,
whose candidacy was rated in different ways by different delegates of
the congress is number one on the St. Petersburg regional list. According
to Rossiyskiye Vesti, it was Yavlinsky's decision to include Kovalyov
on the federal list of YABLOKO. First of all, the decision by Kovalyov
to join YABLOKO from the SPS undermines the connection of the SPS with
the democratic tradition of protecting human rights. Secondly, public
interest in human rights will soon increase, together with the growth
in the arbitrary rule of the bureaucracy, in particular in the regions,
and the adoption of a number of tough laws, as for example the law "On
Citizenship".
Another two representatives of YABLOKO are interesting: the number two
in St. Petersburg Alexander Gorodnitsky and number one in Central Russia
Alexander Minkin. Deputy Head of the YABLOKO faction Sergei
Ivanenko decided to run as number one in Moscow, i.e. virtually number
eighteen - nineteen in the federal list. Yavlinsky noted that without
Ivanenko who has been heading the work of the faction for ten years already
YABLOKO would not be able to exist. This reflects the leader's strong
belief that at the elections the party will obtain 6.5-7% of votes as
minimum.
See also:
11th Congress
of YABLOKO
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