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Election Commission To Review Yabloko Case

By Galina Stolyarova

Staff Writer

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times A policeman looks out from behind a campaign poster for the coming Legislative Assembly elections, on Thursday.

The Central Election Commission in Moscow was due to hold a special session Friday to review the conflict between the St. Petersburg branch of liberal opposition party Yabloko and the St. Petersburg election commission that banned the party from upcoming election to the city’s Legislative Assembly.

Now that the option to vote “against all candidates” no longer exists and with Yabloko thrown out of the election, the party’s supporters have been left wondering how to act.

However Yabloko and the opposition coalition Other Russia are considering a bold alternative: suggesting that voters can take ballots out of the polling station and hand them over to party representatives, who would then calculate the results as a “protest vote.”

“This scenario is still being discussed among liberals, and the final decision will be announced after the verdict of the Central Election Commission,” said Sergei Gulyayev, a Yabloko lawmaker in the Legislative Assembly. “There is still hope that [Governor] Valentina Matviyenko’s grudge against Yabloko, that is apparently behind the decision of the local commisssion, is not shared by the officials in Moscow, who might take a different view of this political battle.”

Taking a ballot out of a polling station is not illegal in Russia since there is no mention of the tactic in the country’s election law.

Political analysts however have expressed scepticism about the outcome of this action, if it is implemented.

Yury Korgunyuk, a leading expert on political parties of the Moscow-based think-tank INDEM, is pessimistic about the plan.

In his opinion, Yabloko greatly overestimates the level of political activity among Russians.

“Apathy and inertia are the two predominating moods in Russian society today,” he said.

“Had the people been more active politically, there would have been no need for such tools. If masses of enraged voters flooded the streets in protest against such blatant bias against a major democratic party, the authorities would have promptly taken a step back.”

As Sergei Khokhayev, chairman of the Memorial human rights group points out, the last time Russia saw a mass protest was in January 2005 when people across the country took the streets to object to pension reforms.

“Sadly, it takes a financial matter now to get the people out of their homes,” Khokhayev said. “As for the opposition rallies, with such low attendance it is impossible to make a difference. Of course, the state would face greater pressure if many thousands of people joined forces, even if it’s just for one street protest,” he added.

Diana Kachalova, a political journalist and editor of the newspaper Moy Rayon, said the Russian public, even those who support the goals declared by liberal opposition parties, are tired and wary of engaging in politics.

“Failed Communism followed by failed democracy complete with failed economic reforms was too much for many people,” said Kachalova, who won the 2005 Paul Klebnikov Prize for Courage in Journalism, awarded in memory of the murdered editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. “They have learned to watch out for themselves and be selfish, and to mind their own business,” she added.

Public support for political rallies and marches, which reached its peak in the early 1990s in the wake of the turbulence of perestroika, has been declining since and has nearly come to a standstill in recent years.

Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly on Wednesday sent an appeal to the State Duma asking the parliamentarians to amend the election law by including a ban on holding referendums during any election campaign.

The St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko had earlier called for a city-wide referendum on the building of a controversial new building to be the headquarters of Gazprom, Russia’s energy giant.

Gulyayev said that the city’s election commission had offered the party a deal: if Yabloko took a step back from pressing for the Gazprom vote, the commission would not hinder the party’s participation in local elections.

“We did take time to consider the offer and thoroughly think it over but we felt we cannot make deals with dishonest people,” Gulyayev said.

Dmitry Krasnyansky, deputy head of the St. Petersburg Election Commission denied Gulyayev’s allegations. He maintains Yabloko was excluded from the elections solely on legal grounds.

“A total of 11.97 percent of the signatures presented to the commission in order for the party to be registered for the elections failed to meet the required standards,” Krasnyansky said. “The law sets a 10 percent limit for the invalid signatures.”

The election to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly is scheduled for March 11.

Yabloko’s plight has attracted international attention. This week the party received two open letters of support from European parliamentarians. Lawmakers from the environmental faction of the Hamburg parliament and People’s Party faction of the parliament of Sweden expressed their serious doubts about the legitimacy and fairness of verdict of the St. Petersburg Election Commission and urged the Central Election Commission to deliver an independent decision on the matter.

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