They didn't come to Poltavchenko

The inauguration of the governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko was ignored by several deputies of the Legislative Assembly

Parliamentarians from the Yabloko faction - Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Vishnevsky and Alexander Kobrinsky - and Socialist -Revolutionaries Sergey Trokhmanenko decided to defiantly ignore the solemn ceremony in the Mariinsky Palace.

Boris Vishnevsky told Radio Liberty that he did not believe that there were governor elections in St. Petersburg:

- It’s like if the Zenit and a dozen court teams were held and the Zenit championship would be celebrated, although no other serious teams - SKA, Dynamo and others did not allow the games. It is simply impossible to calmly respond to the results of our elections, there were so many violations there. Municipal elections are generally completely falsified. This is a particularly serious crime against the constitutional rights of citizens - on a particularly large scale. In our city, now there is simply no legitimate municipal government, and in protest against all this, we, of course, did not consider it possible to come to the inauguration. Otherwise, it would have happened that we are ready to swallow all this, but this is not so. We chose the form of protest that is available to us, I consider other behavior as the betrayal of those citizens who voted for us. We are now preparing new lawsuits in court regarding the results of the elections, so the struggle continues. And our gesture, ignoring the inauguration, I do not consider at all as something heroic, as a feat-this is a normal reaction of normal people, nothing more. And it is very sad that the times have come when normal actions seem to be exploits. But I think that for a long time it cannot continue, the situation will certainly change. Although, as I have repeatedly said, the darkness before dawn is the most threatening.

What happened on September 14th, we do not consider a free election

Another Yablonnik deputy Alexander Kobrinsky said that he preferred everyday work in his office to participate in the inauguration:

- We came to work, registered, but the agenda excluded our presence in the meeting room. What happened on September 14th, we do not consider free elections. And Poltavchenko we consider the governor appointed, not elected. This was an attempt to turn into a chosen governor with the help of a clearing of a clearing in advance from competitors, with the help of various frauds - stuffing, manipulations with protocols in order to increase the turnout and voices filed for the governor, and all this led to a completely Chechen result that we had in St. Petersburg. Therefore, today we do not see any event, no holiday, we do not believe that Mr. Poltavchenko took office again: he was appointed as appointed.

If you can capture a large piece of land of the adjacent state, relying exclusively on the power of weapons, then why not the municipalities attract bandits in order not to let the opposition candidates to the election commissions, let them register?

- And what do you associate with this character of the elections?

-I associate it with Ukrainian events, the whole country was demonstrated that it is possible to solve political problems, bypassing the law, based only on expediency and widely applied force outside of any procedures. If you can capture a large piece of land of the adjacent state, relying exclusively on the power of weapons, then why not the municipalities attract bandits in order not to let the opposition candidates to the election commissions, let them register? They, unlike Putin, have neither the army nor the police, they are forced to do with other means. It seems that the team is given - if the political means of struggle are exhausted, then you can use power, gangster, fraudulent - anything. The consequences can be different - depending on the reaction of people. The first consequences we already see-the real turnout in this election was 12-15%, this has never happened at all. Hence this collection of all possible state employees and pensioners for early elections. The number of voting in early elections in many areas exceeded the number of September 14, and this shame of St. Petersburg and the shame of Mr. Poltavchenko. A distinctive feature of these elections-that now no one is shy, so maybe we will still come to the Soviet result, when there will be 99.9% of those who voted for a single candidate. In the previous elections, the authorities still tried to observe at least some legality, and now they simply giggle in the face and say: "Well, you understand!"

- Why did so few deputies decide to protest?

-I would not want to give any sharp assessments, but of course I regret that it happened-that from the Fair Russia faction in our demarche, for example, only one deputy Trochmanenko participated. It turns out that in Yabloko we express more indignation about the inadmissance of the leader of the St. Petersburg “Socialist -Revolutionaries” Oksana Dmitrieva, than her own party, whose representatives came to the celebrations, as if recognizing these elections. This is not very clear to me. As for the "civilian platform" - well, well, these are supporters of the batch of oligarchs, and the oligarchs will never quarrel with the authorities, so their subordinates will not quarrel either.

- A week ago, 14 St. Petersburg deputies first announced the non -recognition of the governor’s elections, and then the municipal ones - due to mass falsifications. Did these statements be a zilch?

“Yes, we can say that only four people showed a sequence - three people from Yabloko and one of the Just Russia,” said Alexander Kobrinsky.

At the inauguration, there was no head of the Just Russia faction Alexei Kovalev and the former candidate for governors from the LDPR Konstantin Sukhenko, however, these deputies did not say that they ignored the ceremony, it is known that they were on vacation. For Alexei Kovalev , according to him, the presence or absence of an inauguration at the ceremony is not a fundamental question:

For me, the inauguration does not mean anything at all

- I consider the current system of governor's elections even worse than the previous assignment system. The municipal filter creates an impossible situation when people who choose only 5 or 7% of citizens, then determine who the townspeople vote for. We already passed all this in 1989, so now I even offered my party not to participate in the elections at all. Therefore, now for me the inauguration does not mean anything at all. And to be or not to be in the inauguration, this, in my opinion, is a question related exclusively with the regulations: deputies are obliged to participate in meetings, and this is completely unrelated to the attitude to the elections.

But the deputy, a supporter of the "civilian platform" Maxim Reznik says that he went to the inauguration, but did not applaud and did not get up:

- Yes, I had the idea not to attend today's event, but these are not related things - the presence in the hall and the attitude to the elections. I did not come there for the inauguration, because I do not think it, I came to the panchid for the election. Still, the memorial service and the funeral should be visited: there are no more elections in St. Petersburg, and it was necessary to participate in this event, express my condolences to the native city. And besides, before that I only read about the atmosphere of the “smelly scoop” in books, but here I felt it fully, and I think, for the one who fights for freedom, this is not useless experience. I think that the supporters of the “civilian platform” withstood the exam-we did not applaud when everyone applauded, and did not get up when everyone got up, and this is not so simple.

- Maybe it was easier not to come at all?

- May be. But the easiest is not always the most correct. If you generalize, it was a holiday of hypocrisy, and at this holiday we were strangers.