"Can't be of any help"

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is serving a sentence in a colony in Segezha, made a statement with which he responded to proposals to take part in the elections to the Coordination Council of the Opposition, and also expressed his understanding of the tasks that the representative body of the protest movement elected on October 21 will solve:

“A number of people I respect approached me with a proposal to nominate their candidacy for the Coordination Council of Protest Actions, which will be elected on October 21 of this year. I am grateful to everyone who considered me worthy of participating in the new structure. But the idea of ​​nominating my candidacy for the Constitutional Court is everything I but refused.

First of all, this is due to the fact that in my current position I cannot be useful in solving the practical problems that the Constitutional Court faces,” MBKh explained his refusal. - I wish success to the organizers and all participants in the elections. I would like to hope that the Coordination Council being created, firstly, will contribute to the consolidation of civil society, and secondly, it will become a truly collegial body that will demonstrate an effective democratic alternative to the current personalist regime.

I see the most important role of the Coordination Council in finding a format for constant dialogue between opposition politicians and the protest activists themselves, “Bolotnaya Square” in the broad sense of this geographical name. I do not rule out that the Council will also be able to find forms of interaction with the Kremlin in order to clearly and comprehensively convey to the existing authorities the position of the “angry citizens.”

It is important to remember that the credibility of Bolotnaya Square with any politicians is very limited, and therefore the Coordination Council assumes great responsibility for strengthening this trust."