Yabloko
The Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko is a social-liberal political party in Russia.
The party consequently participated in the elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of all eight convocations. Until 2003, Yabloko was represented by a faction in the State Duma and later until 2007 by individual deputies. In March 2002, the party became a full member of the Liberal International, and since November 1998, it has been in observer status. The founder of the party Grigory Yavlinsky is an honorary vice-president of the Liberal International and winner of its Prize for Freedom. Yabloko was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe from 2006 to 2025. As of 2021, the party was represented by factions in 4 regional parliaments of the Russian Federation. In addition, members of the party were deputies of 13 administrative centers of the subjects of the Russian Federation, 183 representatives of the party were municipal deputies in Moscow and 84 in Saint Petersburg.
The party also advocates for the protection of the rights of LGBT people in Russia.
History
The party dates back to the early 1990s. Originally established as a public organization in 1993, it transformed into a political party in 2001. From 1993 to 2003, the party had a small faction in the State Duma; in 2003, four single-mandate deputies passed from Yabloko to the Duma: one of them joined United Russia, and three joined the informal group of independent democrats. After the tightening of Russian legislation in 2011, only 7 registered political parties remained in Russia, among which was Yabloko. In 2011, the party managed to obtain the right to state funding, which allowed further functioning of the organization. As a result of the 2016 elections, the party is not receiving any state funding any further.Emergence of the Party (1993–2002)
The immediate predecessor of the Yabloko party was the electoral bloc Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin, formed for the legislative elections of 1993. "Yabloko" is an acronym of the names of its founders: "Я" for Grigory Yavlinsky; "Б" for Yury Boldyrev, and "Л" for Vladimir Lukin, with the full name meaning "Apple" in Russian.The bloc included several political parties: the Republican, the Social Democratic, and the Russian Christian Democratic Union – New Democracy. The Yabloko bloc in the 1993 elections received 7.86% of the vote, as a result of which the Yabloko faction was created in the State Duma In January 1995 Yabloko was transformed into a public association after holding a founding congress. Yavlinsky became the head of the central council. Already during this period, there were some changes in the leadership. In 1994 part of the representatives of the Republican Party, headed by Vladimir Lysenko, left the bloc. At the same time, the Regional Center Party from St. Petersburg joined Yabloko as a regional organization. In September 1995, due to disagreements on some fundamental issues, Yury Boldyrev left the association as well.
The Yabloko public association was able to form factions based on the results of the elections to the State Duma in 1995 and 1999. In 1995, in the elections to the State Duma of the 2nd convocation, the Yabloko association received 6.89% of the vote. In the elections of the State Duma of the III convocation in 1999 Yabloko association made an alliance with Sergei Stepashin, including him as number three of the party list. According to the results of the vote count, the party received 5.93% of the votes.
Yabloko during the entire period of President Yeltsin became the "democratic opposition" to the president's policies. For example, Yabloko opposed privatization conducted by Anatoly Chubais, and offered an alternative program in 1998, which stated that privatization was carried out in an economically senseless and socially detrimental way, passing control of sold organizations to the "directors" with several backdrop nominal owners.
During the 1996 elections, Yavlinsky was offered to join the government. As a condition to join Yabloko's leader demanded an end to hostilities in Chechnya and to make serious adjustments to the socio-economic policy. In addition, he demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, head of the Security Service of the President of the Russian Federation Alexander Korzhakov, First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, head of the presidential administration Nikolai Yegorov, director of the FSS Mikhail Barsukov. Since these conditions were not accepted, Yavlinsky and his team did not enter the government.
Some members of the Yabloko faction nevertheless accepted the proposals of the executive branch. Mikhail Zadornov and Oksana Dmitrieva became members of the government, for which they were expelled from the party. Also, Ivan Grachev and Vyacheslav Igrunov left Yabloko.
In May 1999, the Yabloko faction voted for the impeachment of President Yeltsin. The bulk of the State Duma deputies supported the accusation of the president of unleashing war in Chechnya and 24 deputies voted for the impeachment of Yeltsin on charges of an armed dispersal of the Supreme Council in October 1993. Yabloko, however, refused to support other articles of accusations, including the article proposed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation about the "genocide of the Russian people." Yabloko criticized presidential and government policies and regularly voted against draft state budgets submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers to the Duma.
On 16 August 1999, 18 members of the Yabloko faction, including Yavlinsky, voted for the appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister, 4 members abstained, 8 voted against, and 15 did not vote. In May 2000, 4 deputies of the Yabloko faction voted for the appointment of Mikhail Kasyanov as prime minister, 8 members voted against and 4 abstained. Yabloko also supported a bill developed with the participation of faction deputy Mikhail Zadornov on the introduction of a flat income tax instead of a progressive taxation scale.
Since Putin was never supported by a majority of Yabloko members, the party found itself in fierce opposition to the government, criticizing the government during the remaining term of the State Duma of the third convocation, especially as parliamentary elections approached.
In December 2001, on the basis of the all-Russian political public organization Yabloko and the Party of Social liberalism the Russian Democratic Party Yabloko was officially created, which advocates the European path of development of the Russian Federation and is a member of several international and European organizations. Since November 1998, the Yabloko association has had observer status with the Liberal International and participated in its events. At the 51st Congress of the Liberal International, held on 21–23 March 2002 in Budapest, the Yabloko party was accepted into the ranks of this international organization as a full member.
On 26 April 2002, the Russian Democratic Party Yabloko was registered by the Ministry of Justice. Grigory Yavlinsky was elected chairman of the party.
Political party (2002 to present)
According to the deputy chairman of Yabloko, Sergei Ivanenko, in 2002 the party had 20,000 members.In June 2003, the Yabloko faction voted for a vote of no confidence in the government, which, however, was not approved by the Duma.
Since 2003, Yabloko's position has worsened. In the 2003 State Duma elections, the Yabloko party received 4.3% of the vote and did not receive seats in the State Duma on party lists. Interestingly, the fact that Vladimir Putin called Grigory Yavlinsky at night, during the counting of votes, with congratulations on the victory, became widely known.
After the joining of Green Russia and Soldiers' Mothers in 2006, the name of the party was changed to the Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko". Since 2006, the Yabloko party has become part of the European party Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Sergey Mitrokhin became party chairman in 2008.
In the 2007 elections, only 1.59% of voters voted for Yabloko, and the party did not enter the State Duma again. In 2008 the party had 58,540 members. In the 2011 elections according to official data from the CEC, 3.43% of voters voted for Yabloko. In these elections, the party more than doubled its result but still did not get into the State Duma. However, this result gave Yabloko the possibility of state funding. In 2012 Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky was not registered by the Central Election Commission as a candidate for the presidential elections.
In 2021 the party had 16,100 members.
In the elections to the State Duma of 2021, Grigory Yavlinsky for the first time in the history of the party refused to run for deputies, and the federal list of candidates was headed by Yabloko chairman Nikolay Rybakov. 1.34% of voters voted for Yabloko.
On 14 October 2021, the Federal Political Committee of the party decided to withdraw from the election candidates who supported the idea of Smart Voting Alexei Navalny. Several Yabloko members criticized the party's policies and demanded the leadership to resign.
On 26 October 2021, the members of the Arkhangelsk regional branch of Yabloko published a statement, in which they demanded that the central political committee of the party be dismissed due to the adoption of the so-called "Yavlinsky blacklist", which lead to the suspension of the activities of the branch. On 19 November 2021, the federal bureau of Yabloko appointed the re-registration of party members prior to the upcoming party congress in December
Russian invasion of Ukraine and stance on war in Ukraine
On 13 February 2022, Yabloko published a petition against a possible war with Ukraine. Yabloko is opposing Russia's 2022 attack on Ukraine and has been taking part in protests against the war. After the beginning of the invasion, the Federal Political Committee of the party declared"Yabloko expresses its categorical protest against the outbreak of hostilities against Ukraine. This war is Russia's war with the objective course of history, a war against time, a tragic fall from the reality of the modern world. The consequences of this war will last for a very long time, but now, first of all, it is a tragedy, suffering, and death of people, and this will never be corrected. The reason for the tragedy is lies, cruelty, and absolute indifference to the people of the Russian authorities. The Yabloko party considers the war with Ukraine to be the gravest crime. We believe that this war is contrary to the national interests of Russia and destroys the future of Russia."On 28 February 2022, the Yabloko factions in the parliaments of Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Pskov region, and Karelia tried to initiate appeals from their legislative assemblies to President Putin with a call to immediately stop hostilities on the territory of Ukraine and start peace negotiations with international mediation, withdraw military units to places of permanent deployment, to exchange prisoners on the principle of "all for all". Several members of the Yabloko party in various regions were detained for participating in anti-war protests.