NOS
News from the NOS•
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Christian Paauwe
Publisher abroad
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Christian Paauwe
Publisher abroad
“Who is in favor of changing the statute?” Green sheets rise. “Who against?” In this way the Russian “deputies” can cast their vote. In a circle, the participants in the classroom look at the president, who is counting the votes.
Everything should suggest that a democratic process is underway here. A “session of representatives” as we read on the dishes on the table. In Jablonna’s palace – outside Warsaw – some 50 Russian opposition politicians gathered this weekend – in person and via an online connection. Their goal: to create a transitional parliament for a post-Putin Russia.
It is their first meeting and the ambitions are high. This parliament must be ready the day after the change of power in Russia, says initiator Ilya Ponomarjov. “For this, we want to pass a series of laws that will go into effect immediately. So that citizens know what to expect.”
Navalny team not present
Ponomarjov was the only member of the Duma to vote against the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and is now a Ukrainian opposition party. The Russians ask him: if we don’t want Putin, who will? “We want to offer that alternative.” The first statutes show that ambitions are inextricably linked to the war in Ukraine. He says the representatives do not support the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine.
The session is attended by more than fifty politicians active in Russia at the regional or national level. According to the organization, there are also participants who are still in Russia, participate anonymously online. But there is no united opposition here in Poland.
Representatives of Alexei Navalny, for example, are not in the room, his team has announced that he will not join. The other participants who had registered no longer participate because they do not agree on the progress of the initiative.
The initiator Nina Belyayeva – a representative of the Voronezh region who had to flee because she spoke out against the war – withdrew and on the day of the meeting she lashed out at the organization, which in turn would be “undemocratic and authoritarian. “.
What is the legitimacy of what is happening here? These are the first steps, the organization acknowledges. But they certainly have legitimacy, according to Ponomarjov. Elections in Russia are currently not free and not pure at all, stresses the opposition politician. And the participants here were once democratically elected in Russia.
As there are no free elections in Russia, that’s all they can do, adds lawyer and co-organizer Yelena Lukyanova. She is also in the audience and writes additions in pencil in the printed “statutes”. “The Duma now has no legitimacy. All we can do here is bring together representatives who have been democratically elected in recent decades.”
Lukyanova sees that real change will only come when Putin is no longer in power. “When and where the black swan will arrive in Russia, nobody knows. But there are no eternal authoritarian regimes.” You hope that you and the people here have the reforms ready for a new future for Russia.
Symbolically for that new future, the “people’s representatives” use their own blue and white flag. “It is the flag of a new Russia,” says Ponomarjov. The current tricolor, but without blood “.
