The Supreme Court of Russia, in accordance with the request of the Ministry of Justice, liquidated the People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS) and complied with the request of the Ministry of Justice, media reported on Friday (May 25).
Until recently, the party led by Mikhail Kassianov, the country’s former prime minister, remained one of the few officially registered opposition political forces in Russia. Alexei Navalny, for example, never succeeded in registering his party despite repeated attempts to do so.
At the initial stage of party activity, besides Kasyanov, it was led by Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov. Later Ryzhkov quit the party and Nemtsov was shot dead in central Moscow by an assassin in 2015.
The formal basis for the closure of PARNAS was the number of regional party branches. By law, they must exist in at least half of the regions of Russia. At the same time, the authorities now consider the annexed Ukrainian territories as subjects of the federation, including Crimea, Sevastopol and four other (!) regions.
A number of party activists have been subject to repression, in particular the head of the Samara branch, Andrey Balin, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for “false” about the Russian armed forces.
The decision to liquidate did not surprise us, noted Andrey Zubov, vice president of the People’s Freedom Party, in an interview with the Russian service American media. According to him, it is rather a “natural nuisance”.
“We never hid our principled positions, we made all public statements in Russian and English on various current events, including the war in Ukraine, and before that – the annexation of Crimea, Donbass, aggression in Syria, called the war a war, and so on. , he added. – And when we were informed that a file was being opened to close the party, we assumed it was completely natural. We are enemies of the regime, and the regime does not tolerate enemies.
Nevertheless, the party expected it to be closed for real political reasons, Andrey Zubov continued: “But they were afraid to do so and decided to liquidate PARNAS on a formal basis – supposedly we had fewer regional branches than in half of the constituency entities of the Russian Federation. But, firstly, we were not allowed to open new branches. In several regions, we submitted all the documents, we were answered for various reasons, sometimes completely stupid, finding fault with trifles. Secondly, in a number of regions, in particular in Yaroslavl, our representative offices were closed. But all the same, PARNAS had 44 branches, which was sufficient in the former Russian borders (before the annexation of Ukrainian territory) But the judge criticized the fact that now in Russia there are not 83 subjects, but 89 (including 6 on the territory of Ukraine).
However, in the current situation, this fundamentally changes nothing for us, the politician said. “Anyway, we weren’t going to participate in the next elections. Because the elections in Russia have become an absolute fiction. And everything else we will continue to do, as before. We will maintain relations with our like-minded people, create new branches, but without registration now … And we will prepare for real democratic elections that will be held one day in the future Russia, improve our program and perhaps fix it -We. In the next few days, the Federal Political Council of the party will be held, during which, as I assume, we will decide on the continuation of our political activities in the new status quo. So there is not the slightest discouragement. I believe that everything is going as usual, and this decision will only help us in our future political activities,” concluded the vice president of the People’s Freedom Party.
In turn, political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, in a comment to American media, said that PARNAS, like other democratic or European political forces in Russia, has long been without serious political resources. Nevertheless, the story of the liquidation of the party, in his opinion, is very revealing and characteristic.
“It is interesting here to know why the authorities even needed to close PARNAS,” he argues. – It (the party of Mikhail Kasyanov) in the current situation is even safer (for the regime) than Yabloko. Yabloko still has a solid organizational structure, but his party members (with a few exceptions in the form of Lev Schlosberg) are quieter than water, lower than grass. Behind the withdrawal of PARNAS from the arena, I see only a small vindictiveness of the Kremlin. Because the party in its current form cannot constitute the vertical of power in a real competition.
At the same time, it is surprising that the court was still looking for a formal justification for closing the structure, Dmitry Oreshkin stressed. “On the one hand, it is a job search for the law enforcement bodies, so that they do not sit idly by, accomplish their mission. On the other hand, a small settling of accounts. Probably, Putin is personally happy to step on Kasyanov’s tail. The president is a vindictive and petty person. But in general, all this looks tragicomic. It’s not even scary anymore, it’s just disgusting. It’s a sign that the government as a system has somehow gone mad, and constantly has to expose someone, destroy enemies, etc. The Kremlin is no longer capable of anything positive,” the political scientist concluded.
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