MUST-READ Despite the defeat, the party has major plans for the future, which Sergei Mitrokhin, deputy to Grigory Yavlinsky, shared with Ytro. Ytro: How do you assess the outcome of the recent vote? Frankly speaking, the results shown by the democratic opposition were disappointing. Sergei Mitrokhin: We consider the election results falsified and do not recognize them. According to our own exit polls, our real result was around 8%. So there was no defeat for Yabloko, because there were no real elections—there was a "carousel" scheme involving absentee ballots, where one person could vote as many times as they were able to travel between polling stations. We do not rule out that this was done not only by people from United Russia, but also by other parties that made it into the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament). But even that was not enough—there were also massive ballot-box stuffing operations. I personally witnessed this at one polling station. There is nothing to celebrate here—it was a gigantic disgrace in front of the whole world. In order to preserve his influence, Putin once again humiliated the national dignity of Russian citizens. Y: What are Yabloko’s next plans? Can the idea of uniting the democrats be forgotten? S.M.: Unification—at least with the Union of Right Forces (SPS)—is no longer relevant. What is relevant is energizing civil society, which does exist, though with extremely low political activity. This is the hardest task, and it is one that SPS never worked on. Yabloko will continue to address it, and even more actively than before. There is very strong potential here. We will actively support and strengthen civic oversight committees, which have already been created in many regions. We will try to unite not simply politicians with zero support, but the leaders of a segmented civil society, who are now fragmented and politically ineffective, yet possess great political potential. If members of the Union of Right Forces join us through networks of civic organizations, we will only welcome them. But I mean those SPS members who are backed by real forces within civil society. This does not apply to the party’s current leaders. Y: What can you say to the winners of the election? S.M.: A Just Russia and the LDPR are just as servile as United Russia. It was thanks to that servility that they were pushed into the Duma. This does not apply to the Communist Party. Incidentally, the communists’ real results were cut in half. On the other hand, broadly speaking, the Communist Party is the bearer of the same ideology of one-party hegemony as Putin, so it is not an alternative to United Russia. And United Russia itself has a rating of just over 30%. Y: Is Yabloko planning to challenge the election results in court? Or should we expect some other forms of protest? S.M.: I do not rule out a rally. But going to court under current conditions is pointless: it is the same as being told to get lost—a crude brush-off officials use everywhere. http://www.utro.ru/articles/2007/12/03/699244.shtml
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