| JRL HOME | SUPPORT | SUBSCRIBE | RESEARCH & ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT | |
Old Saint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowJohnson's Russia List title and scenes of Saint Petersburg
Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson

#12
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
RFE/RL RUSSIAN POLITICAL WEEKLY
Vol. 1, No. 22, 20 September 2001
A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic
Politics

KREMLIN MASTERMINDS SPLIT IN YABLOKO? The specter of a split
within Yabloko's ranks appeared earlier in September when the former
chair of the Yabloko's Moscow Youth organization, Andrei Sharomov,
openly sided against Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii in a long-
standing conflict between Yavlinskii and Yabloko Duma Deputy
Vyacheslav Igrunov. The episode started when Yavlinskii fired
Sharomov for an unauthorized absence from work. Sharomov told Ekho
Moskvy on 8 September that the firing was unjust, since he had been
on a business trip, attending a youth seminar in Irkutsk. Sharomov
announced he has filed suit against Yavlinskii, seeking reinstatement
in his position. The suit was scheduled for a hearing on 5 October,
according to the website polit.ru. But Sharomov apparently couldn't
wait and announced on 10 September that he was resigning from all
organizational structures of Yabloko in an act of protest against
Yavlinskii's "authoritarian" rule, "internal party repression and
campaign of persecution."

Three days later, in an interview with the state radio station
Radio Rossii, Sharomov changed his story completely. Rather than
being fired, he said he had resigned in protest over an attempt to
paint Vyacheslav Igrunov as "an enemy of the people." Six members of
Yabloko's Youth party in Moscow had reportedly given Sharomov on 3
September a text disparaging Igrunov, which Sharomov said that he
could not support. Calling Igrunov "one of the architects" and
"founding fathers" of Yabloko, Sharomov lamented that "unfortunately,
Grigorii Alekseevich has chosen the path of authoritarianism." He
also noted that public support for Yabloko is "two times less than it
was a year ago."

In a long interview with "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 19 September,
Igrunov painted a similarly bleak picture of the party, saying that
it is populated more and more by people who use it "to make money,
work with Yavlinskii, and access his funds." According to Igrunov,
about half a dozen people who have been with Yabloko since its
beginning have left. Igrunov also claimed that Yavlinskii resisted
holding a party congress immediately after the December 1999 State
Duma elections because at the time "his critics were too strong."
Igrunov claims Yavlinskii now wants to hold a party congress as
quickly as possible so that a new Central Council of the party can be
selected which is subordinated to his will. Both Igrunov and Sharomov
are or were members of Yabloko's Central Council.

There are various theories about what caused the original
falling-out between Igrunov and Yavlinskii. For example, the
government news agency RIA-Novosti claimed on 18 September that
Igrunov started to "express his sharp criticism of Yabloko's
leadership when, in his opinion, in 1993 it became confrontational."
However, in the interview with "Nezavisimaya gazeta," Igrunov himself
traced the conflict to Yavlinskii's announcement in the State Duma
that no one from Yabloko would enter into the government of then
Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov despite an almost unanimous decision
by the party's Central Council that any offer of a position would be
examined on an ad hoc basis. When Igrunov complained, Yavlinskii
reportedly responded, "Isn't my opinion for the party enough?" "When
I answered that was insufficient, he began to regard me as [his]
enemy," Igrunov recounted.

Leader of the Yabloko's press service, Yurii Shein, has
acknowledged that a "conflict between Yavlinskii and Igrunov exists"
but denies that there is any kind of repression of free speech within
the party, or any kind of split. According to Shein in remarks to
"Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 11 September, Sharomov's unauthorized
absence "for 2.5 days" was due to a trip to Amur Oblast to
participate in the election campaign of a candidate with whom Yabloko
has no connection.

Shortly after Sharomov's announcement of his "resignation,"
Igrunov announced that he will resign from all positions in Yabloko
on 10 October. Given his extremely negative assessment of the party,
it's not clear why he didn't resign much earlier. Boris Berezovskii's
"Nezavisimaya gazeta," which has provided extensive coverage of the
Igrunov-Sharomov conflict, suggested on 12 September that the timing
of Igrunov's resignation is linked to upcoming elections for the
Moscow City Duma. According to the daily, Yavlinskii will try to use
this election on Igrunov's turf to show "what an incapable person
Igrunov is."

Sergei Mitrokhin, a Duma deputy and supporter of Yavlinskii,
has put forth another theory: He believes Sharomov and Igrunov are
fulfilling a Kremlin-backed plan to split Yabloko. According to
Mitrokhin, the new organization called Civic Forum, which he
described as being set up by Igrunov and Sharomov, is "an absolutely
pro-Kremlin organization." Igrunov does serve on Civic Forum's
organizational committee, and Civic Forum's links with the Kremlin
are well established. And "Vremya Novostei" reported on 7 September
that Igrunov, together with unofficial Kremlin adviser Gleb
Pavlovskii and deputy presidential administration head Vladislav
Surkov, conducted negotiations with non-governmental organizations in
an attempt to persuade them to attend the Civic Forum congress in
November.

The development of further ties between Igrunov and the Kremlin
may add weight to Mitrokhin's claims, but decisive proof of a "plot"
will likely prove elusive. In the meantime, Yavlinskii, who had
earlier complained about the central media's complete failure to give
any coverage of Yabloko, is back in the public eye. As the analytical
website polit.ru noted on 10 September, Yavlinskii had all but
disappeared from central media outlets in recent months. (Julie A.
Corwin)

 
Back to the Top    Next Section