Non-urgent spring

On Tuesday, the bureau of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko made a decision that has every chance of becoming fateful. Its essence is the initiative to create a democratic renewal movement that could unite all democratic opposition forces in Russia.

The common cause is more important than brands
The idea of ​​uniting all Russian democrats did not arise today. Of course, if it had been implemented a little earlier, the result of the last State Duma elections could have been completely different. Which means the country would be different. Now this prospect is being relegated to foggy uncertainty, and yet it is achievable, especially in St. Petersburg, where the majority of opposition representatives agree with the idea of ​​unification.
The essence of the proposal of the St. Petersburg Yabloko supporters is simple: to gather all truly democratic forces in one movement. To do this, it is proposed to do the following.
First, find out the positions of other opposition members on the issue of unification. Secondly, based on the data obtained, conduct additional negotiations in order to develop compromises on controversial issues. Thirdly, gather representatives of all organizations for a round table, at which they will develop the final basic principles of unification.
“We hope that on the basis of the resulting movement, a new party may emerge in the future - exactly the kind that today’s Russia needs,” says one of the authors of the project, Yuri Nesterov. — If in the end “Yabloko” as a brand ceases to exist, then so be it. We need to move forward.
“The key point of the upcoming negotiations is to completely exclude from the agenda one eternal question: “Who is to blame?” in order to stop squabbles within the opposition, and leave another one: “What to do?” says Maxim Reznik, chairman of Yabloko in St. Petersburg.

Who will get in and who won't
The Yabloko members plan to involve the Union of Right Forces, the Republican Party of Vladimir Ryzhkov, the VAT of Mikhail Kasyanov and the United Front of Garry Kasparov in the negotiation process.
“The movement will close its doors to any Kremlin projects like “Civic Force,” which just supported Medvedev’s candidacy in the presidential elections,” Reznik asserts. — Various undemocratic associations will also not be able to enter into it; however, this does not mean that individual participants in the movement will be prohibited from collaborating, for example, with Limonovites and communist oppositionists on some issues of countering the regime.
Separately, Maxim Reznik asked his colleagues not to connect the work on creating a democratic renewal movement with the presidential elections in any way - most likely, this process will take much longer.
The proposal of the St. Petersburg Yabloko members will be considered at the federal bureau of the party on Friday. It is not yet known whether colleagues from other regions, and primarily Muscovites, will support this bold initiative.

Andrzej BELOWRANIN

Help "Novaya"
The protest electorate (the one that came to the polls earlier this month) accounts for about 40% of the total number of voters in St. Petersburg. If we include in this figure those who ignored the last elections (and this is almost half of the population of the northern capital), the share of “Protestants” increases to 70%. At the same time, democratic views, based on the election results, are shared by no more than 10% of voters.