YABLOKO AT A LOSS AFTER OCTOBER 8 ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 011632

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EUR/RUS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/17/2016
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM PREL RS
SUBJECT: YABLOKO AT A LOSS AFTER OCTOBER 8 ELECTIONS

REF: A. ST PETERSB 585


B. MOSCOW 11388

C. MOSCOW 07666

D. MOSCOW 11413

Classified By: DCM Daniel A. Russell: 1.4 (b, d).

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Summary
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1. (C) In an October 11 meeting, Yabloko Deputy Chairman
Sergey Mitrokhin and Political Department Head Galina
Mikhaleva said the party is facing an existential crisis
following the poor results of the October 8 elections, where
the party polled in the two percent range. Mitrokhin charged
red tape, excessive financial controls, and government
intervention hampered the party's ability to compete; others
maintain Yabloko is vulnerable to charges of membership
padding and embezzlement. Mitrokhin affirmed that the party
will not merge with any of the other democratic opposition
unless under its own terms, and labeled the second place
Party of Life "the sovereign opposition." Time is running
out for the opposition to unify, but Yabloko seems prepared
for extinction. End Summary.

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Precedent Set in October 8 Elections
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2. (C) Yabloko received 2.02 percent of the October 8 vote in
Primorskiy Kray and 2.47 percent in Sverdlovsk Oblast, the
only two regions where the party was on the ballot. Prior to
the elections, the Russian Supreme Court barred Yabloko from
participating in Karelia, saying that the local party branch
did not have a quorum when it chose its candidates.
Mikhaleva said, however, that the Justice Ministry had
already registered the party, so there was no logic to the
Supreme Court's decision in contradicting the Justice
Ministry. She said Yabloko had a strong organization in
Karelia with over 4500 members, and United Russia (YR) felt
intimidated by the preliminary polls showing Yabloko with
20-30 percent in favor so it figured out a "legal" way to
eliminate the competition. Mitrokhin claimed a dangerous
precedent was set in Karelia: it was a sign to other
governors and regional leadership that they can do the same
thing with opposition parties in future elections (ref A).

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Death by Red Tape or Malfeasance or Duplicity
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3. (C) Mikhaleva said that smaller parties -- such as
Yabloko, Union of Right Forces, and the Republican Party --
were drowning in the red tape created by the new election
laws (ref B, C). In addition to the restrictions imposed by
election laws passed in 2005 and 2006, the parties have to
submit financial reports every 3 or 4 months and pay an
elections deposit of USD 800,000 in Moscow and USD 3,000,000
in St. Petersburg. She said it is impossible to collect
signatures without defects. For example, if a person wrote
down Lenin St. instead of Lenin Street, that would be
considered incorrect and not counted. She added that not
having access to mass media was also a major problem and
asked rhetorically "if Yabloko holds a public rally, but it
is not covered by the media and only a few passers by see it,
did it actually happen?"


4. (C) An alternate view was provided by Public Chamber
member Andrey Przhezdomskiy, who separately told us that the
Central Election Commissioner's office discovered numerous
violations in party lists, which were padded with
non-existent voters living on "Lenin Ave." or other,
similarly eponymous streets. Yelena Mizulina, a Duma deputy
for 10 years, first in Yabloko, then in the Union of Right
Forces (SPS),who is now the government's representative to
the Constitutional Court, said that Yabloko is the only party
that maintains closed financial records and charges that
Yavlinskiy does this specially to hide the fact that he
misappropriates party funds. According to Mizulina, Yabloko
can never agree to unite with any other party because that
would require exposing the party financial records to more
public scrutiny and that his conflicts with SPS leader Boris
Nemtsov, et al., were just a pretense to prevent unification
for other reasons.


5. (C) Moscow Helsinki Group Head Lyudmila Alekseyeva, who
agrees in principle with Mikhaleva's contention that lack of
media access impedes the formation of a real opposition, was
caustic on recent accommodations by Yabloko. For a liberal,

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she maintained, there were no attractive political parties
left. Both Yabloko and SPS, in declining to participate in
the Other Russia conference and in silencing their public
criticism of the President, had parted ways with significant
portions of their base. The leaders were guilty, but
Yavlinskiy most of all. Even if Yabloko and SPS were to
merge, she predicted, they would fall short of the seven
percent threshold absent a boost from "friends" in the
Presidential Administration.

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A Merger Highly Unlikely
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6. (C) Mitrokhin dismissed merging with SPS or the Republican
Party, despite their proven success when they have united.
Yabloko and SPS ran separately in the December 2003 Duma
elections, and neither party reached the then-five percent
threshold. But in December 2005, the two parties temporarily
set aside their differences and joined forces to take part in
the Moscow City Duma elections and cleared the 10 percent
threshold. Their combined list garnered 11.1 percent of the
vote. However, Mitrokhin said SPS is too tainted by the
reforms in the 1990s and they can't see eye-to-eye with one
another on most issues. He was almost derisive towards the
Republican Party, saying that party head Vladimir Ryzhkov
traveled to Astrakhan ten times before the vote and still
only managed one percent. He said merging with the
Democratic Party of Russia was also out of the question since
it was a "Kremlin party." He said such parties were
"spoilers" designed to siphon Yabloko's votes. He echoed
Grigoriy Yavlinskiy's view that all other parties must
subordinate themselves to Yabloko if they unite.


7. (C) Over the last 15 years, Yavlinskiy has never formed a
coalition with anyone, except under his own leadership.
Earlier in 2006, Yabloko incorporated the Green Party and
Soldiers' Mothers as factions in the party because their
leaders believed there was no other option since their
membership is below the 50,000 threshold for registration.
In addition, a human rights faction was formed this year
based on the national movement For Human Rights, led by Lev
Ponomaryev. Mikhaleva said the factions function more or
less independently within the party and retain their
distinctiveness. However, the above three factions, combined
with the womens' and youth factions, prevent Yabloko from
successfully articulating a distinct political message.

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Re-Branding?
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8. (C) Some Moscow political commentators have suggested that
the only way for Yabloko to remain in the political landscape
would be through re-branding. However, Mitrokhin
categorically said Yabloko had no intention of re-branding
itself. He commented rather sarcastically that the only way
the party would re-brand itself would be to become
non-democratic or change its name.

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Thoughts on Party of Life
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9. (C) When asked about the excellent performance of the
Russian Party of Life (RPL) in the October 8 elections (ref
D) Mitrokhin called RPL "the sovereign opposition" and said
that the Kremlin was trying to artificially imitate Western
political structures. He said RPL was an administrative
construction that was packed with Kremlin-backed bureaucrats
and businesspeople.

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Comment
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10. (C) Time is running out for Yabloko and the rest of the
"democratic opposition" to unify, with December 1 the
deadline for registering a new party combination for the next
round of elections in 17 regions in March 2007. Moscow
political circles are united in their bafflement over
Yavlinskiy's insistence that he must be the center of any
political merger, organized on his terms. As the October 8
regional elections indicated, it is a recipe for political
extinction.
BURNS