Today, the Yabloko party is the only officially registered political force that actually opposes the Russian government. While police violence against protesters has raised the stakes against participants of opposition protests, criminal prosecutions of potential participants in this year’s parliamentary elections have severely reduced the ranks of the Russian opposition - including, of course, Alexey Navalny.
Most recently, opposition figures such as Dmitry Gudkov, Ivan Pivovarov and Maxim Reznik have either been arrested or have been forced to leave the country. Meanwhile, a debate continues over Navalny’s ‘smart voting’ strategy, which plans to run single opposition candidates in election districts in order to deprive the ruling United Russia party of votes.
Not all opposition forces support this strategy or its leader. Founded in the early 1990s, Yabloko, a stalwart of Russian liberalism, is one of them. And the party has come under fire since its former chairman Grigory Yavlinsky severely criticised Navalny after the opposition figure’s returned to Russia in January.
