Yabloko Leader Slams Exiled Opposition’s Voting Strategy

Nikolai Rybakov, the leader of the Yabloko party, took to a meeting with supporters in St. Petersburg to criticize a voting strategy proposed by Yulia Navalnaya and Maxim Kats, two Russian opposition figures. The Telegram channel Varlamov News captured a video of the event. The pair's main idea was to vote for any party other than United Russia, which currently governs Russia, on party-list ballots. In single-seat districts, they suggested casting votes for the candidate with the best chance of opposing the ruling party.

When Rybakov was questioned about his opinion on the Navalnaya-Kats recommendations, applause broke out from the crowd. However, Rybakov was not amused. He accused them of calling for a "human act of baseness" and questioned their motive behind supporting them in the elections. Rybakov argued that sending his party members to jail for 11 years and now backing them in the elections was unacceptable.

He reminded the audience that some people who didn't understand politics had led to deaths, particularly through actions taken in 2021.

Rybakov warned that if people continued to follow the Navalnaya-Kats strategy, they would be voting for the same people who were responsible for those deaths in Russia and Ukraine. He emphasized that the responsibility would not lie with them but rather with those who made the decision to vote for those individuals. Rybakov challenged the audience to vote for Yabloko's candidates in single-mandate districts or to spoil party-list ballots. He estimated that around 1,300 people attended the meeting.

Rybakov's main message was clear: staying abroad and manipulating others was not the way forward. He urged his supporters to take responsibility for their actions and not to let others manipulate them into voting for those who had led to the killing of innocent people.