All news

Mitrokhin re-elected Yabloko leader

Sergei Mitrokhin has been re-elected chairman of the Yabloko opposition party

MOSKOVSKY, June 16 (Itar-Tass) — Sergei Mitrokhin has been re-elected chairman of the Yabloko opposition party.

A total of 105 delegates out of 129 deputies of the congress voted for Mitrokhin, who had been nominated by founder of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky.

Mitrokhin is leader of the party from 2008 when Yavlinsky stepped down. Mitrokhin stressed that over the four years the party succeeded in carrying out the tasks, strengthening its ranks and achieving considerable progress. The number of deputies doubled in regional parliaments. The party members succeeded in forming factions in legislative assemblies of St Petersburg, Karelia and the Pskov region, he said.

According to Mitrokhin, further work of the Yabloko party should be aimed at taking part in elections at all levels. “Elections are the platform where it is necessary to struggle and win, and give a prize in the form of fair elections,” he noted.

“We are ready to take part in gubernatorial elections. But we realize that it is difficult to overcome the municipal filter. We have the threshold of 10 percent,” Mitrokhin said.

He recalled that in the autumn the party would take part in legislative elections in Krasnodar Territory and Udmurtia, in city elections in Yaroslavl “where the mayor needs our support”.

“On this way Yabloko is ready to cooperate with other political forces with the exception of left radicals, Stalinists and nationalists of different types. If the country needs us, we are ready for such cooperation,” Mitrokhin said.

One of the Yabloko priorities is to create the party’s newspaper, the leader stressed.

According to the mandate commission, the congress involves 129 delegates. Totally, the party has 77 regional branches.

The congress will continue its work on Sunday.