The March of Millions, which the off-system opposition organized, will be held in Moscow on Saturday. The declared numerical strength of participants is 25,000 people, but the organizers believe that there will be more marchers. The March of Millions will focus on social issues.
The RBC daily learnt that in a resolution about to be taken at the March of Millions the oppositionists will be seeking to avoid as much as possible concrete statements, just declaring abstract slogans and the unchanged proposal to Putin to resign. The organizing committee of the protest action noted that a final scenario of the action will be determined on Friday. Meanwhile, the scenario will pursue the main goal of the protest action – many participants at the action.
Member of the organizing committee of the march Sergei Davidis said that a rally will most likely end much earlier than ten hours in the evening that the Moscow Mayor’s Office authorized as a deadline for the rally to end. The traffic on the Garden Ring Road will be suspended for an hour for people to go to the rally. Davidis sees no problems in the fact that the protest action was authorized only for 25,000 people. He believes that there will be much more people and all those who want to come for the march will be able to get there.
According to another member of the organizing committee of the march Alexander Ryklin, the March of Millions will focus on social issues. The sources said that “the opposition stars” and social activists will deliver speeches at the rally. Representative of the group for the support to arrested oppositionists on May 6, the volunteers, who worked in Krymsk, a representative of the protesters against the commercialization of education, a representative of the military, who are dissatisfied with a reform in the army.
According to a participant of the organizing committee, a resolution is expected to be adopted at a rally as it was done at previous opposition rallies. The organizing committee will write some brief text that will be read out from the stage again. This text will be considered successful in case of approving cries of the participants at the rally. Before Friday some amendments may be introduced in the resolution, but it is still very abstract yet. The resolution will also focus on social issues, but the main principle remains unchanged: if Putin resigns, the oppositionists “guarantee” that everything will be all right with education, health care and the housing and public utilities sector. This statement is not substantiated with any concrete proposals.
It is still unclear whether the Communists headed by Gennady Zyuganov will participate in the march, the Novye Izvestia daily noted. The Communist Party does not have a common position over an upcoming march. Member of the presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Valery Rashkin stated that the Moscow office of the party decided to participate in the march, but to go in a separate column. Meanwhile, deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Vladimir Kashin, referring to radical disagreements with participants in the demonstration, stated that neither Zyuganov nor other top party functionaries will participate in the protest action. Although leader of the unregistered party Other Russia Eduard Limonov is firm in his convictions and does not intend to participate in the March of Millions, “The authorization of the protest action by the authorities is not a concession to them and sounds like a request “permit us to march against you”.