Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: RUS32923 Country: Russian Federation Date: 27 February 2008 Keywords: Russian Federation – Yabloko – Treatment of supporters – Tax investigations This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Please provide information on fate of Yabloko Party supporters from 2003 to present. 2. What are the procedures for investigating tax offences? Who are the investigators? Where are the people interviewed? 3. Where are the tax offices located in Moscow? 4. What are the summons and charge procedures for tax offences? 5. Is there a “black list” for people wanted for tax offences when departing Russia? RESPONSE 1. Please provide information on fate of Yabloko Party supporters from 2003 to present. Information on this question is provided under the following sub-headings: Information on the Yabloko Party Funding of the Yabloko Party Treatment of Yabloko supporters since 2003 Information on the Yabloko Party The Yabloko Party is a liberal democratic party in Russia. Although it is well established, Yabloko has been marginalised in Russian politics and has a relatively low level of support. It did not win any seats in the Duma elections held in December 2007. According to the Political Handbook of the World 2007 Yabloko (“Apple”) is formally known as the Russian Democratic Party “Yabloko” (Rossiiskaya Demokraticheskaya Partiya “Yabloko”). The party descended from the Yavlinsky-Boldyrev-Lukin Bloc, an electoral group formed in October 1993 by Grigori Yavlinsky, Yuri Boldyrev and Vladimir Lukin. The Chair of the party is Grigori Yavlinsky and the Deputy Chair, Alexei Arbatov. The party has lost most of its influence since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000 (Banks, Arthur S. et al. (eds) 2007, Political Handbook of the World 2007, CQ Press, Washington, pp.1027-1028 – Attachment 1; Nichol, Jim 2007, Russia’s December 2007 Legislative Election: Outcome and Implications, Congress Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress, 10 December, p.2,4 http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22770.pdf – Accessed 11 February 2008 – Attachment 2; ‘Russia’s party barred from polls’ 2007, BBC News, 28 January http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6308511.stm – Accessed 8 February 2008 – Attachment 3; McFaul, Michael and Stoner-Weiss, Kathryn 2008, ‘The Myth of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin’s Crackdown Holds Russia Back’, Foreign Affairs, January/February http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87105/michael-mcfaul-kathryn-stoner- weiss/the-myth-of-the-authoritarian-model.html?mode=print – Accessed 8 February 2008 – Attachment 4). In the most recent Duma (lower legislative chamber) elections held on 2 December 2007 Yabloko received 1.59% of the vote and failed to win a seat. Petrov, from the Moscow Carnegie Center, stated that the liberal parties will forfeit the 60 million roubles deposit paid to get on the ballot and also pay for the air time provided by the state. As a result, according to Petrov, Yabloko is effectively bankrupt. Nichol, a Russian specialist at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), noted that the Russian NGO, Golos, assessed the elections as not being “free and fair”. Observers from the Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Nordic Council had stated that the election was more efficiently run than in the past but “‘there was not a level political playing field’” (Nichol, Jim 2007, Russia’s December 2007 Legislative Election: Outcome and Implications, Congress Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress, 10 December, p.2,4 http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22770.pdf – Accessed 11 February 2008 – Attachment 2; ‘Official End Result of the Duma Elections (December 8, 2007)’ 2007, Russian Analytical Digest, No. 32, 14 December, p.10 – Attachment 5; Petrov, Nikolai 2007, ‘The Consequences of the State Duma Elections for Russia’s Electoral System’, Russian Analytical Digest, No.32, 14 December, p.6 – Attachment 6). Petrov also writes: One of the main results of the elections was a significant reconfiguration of the political party spectrum in Russia, representing a new approach of the Kremlin. Earlier the Kremlin worked with the completely loyal leaders of the democratic parties SPS [Union of Right Forces] and Yabloko, who still managed to preserve some independence. After these parties did not win representation in the 2003 Duma, the Kremlin decided that it would be easier to get by without them. To gain support on this side of the spectrum, the Kremlin was satisfied with the newly created Civic Force and the resurrected Democratic Party of Russia. Putin’s decision to lead the United Russia party list meant that many of the old parties lost their key constituents. Does the Russian political system even need parties? If they are needed, the results for SPS and Yabloko are not just an alarming warning, but evidence of the crash of the party system in the form that it existed since the beginning of the 1990s. This crash is the result of several causes. Among the objective causes are economic growth, and as a result, the increased well being of the citizens and their satisfaction with the authorities. During bad times, it was necessary to think of a new “party of power” before each election and the opposition parties always made advances. Now the situation has changed fundamentally. Another important cause is the Kremlin’s decision to exert greater control over the parties. The authorities have decided that it is easier to work with parties of their own creation, merging and dividing them according to whim, than it is to work with loyal politicians, who seek to maintain some autonomy. Another problem is the absence of a realistic role for political parties in the political system. The voters have a dim view of the parties and their leaders and therefore support for them is declining. If the parties don’t break out of this closed circle, it will be necessary to constantly think of new party projects, attractive because of their newness and not tied down by past promises, or to find effective showmen like Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Many professional politicians who were completely loyal to the Kremlin, and even capable of working with it, have now been excluded from the Duma and public life in general. If the regime does not want to work with some politicians, that is its business. However, if there is a constant dearth of qualified politicians in the system and it can’t find a place for dozens of qualified politicians, then this is a serious failure of the system itself. If the regime is about to adopt new reforms which will likely summon mass social protests onto the streets as a result, then forcing unwanted politicians out of the system is a serious mistake (Petrov, Nikolai 2007, ‘The Consequences of the State Duma Elections for Russia’s Electoral System’, Russian Analytical Digest, No.32, 14 December, pp.6-7 – Attachment 6). McFaul and Stoner-Weiss state that all independent parties, including Yabloko, are much weaker today and work in a more constrained political environment than in the 1990s. They also state that several candidates of independent parties were disqualified from participating in local elections for political reasons. Yabloko was banned from participating in the local elections held in St. Petersburg in March 2007 because, according to the city’s electoral commission, too many of the signatures supporting the party’s candidates were invalid (McFaul, Michael and Stoner-Weiss, Kathryn 2008, ‘The Myth of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin’s Crackdown Holds Russia Back’, Foreign Affairs, January/February http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080101faessay87105/michael-mcfaul-kathryn-stoner- weiss/the-myth-of-the-authoritarian-model.html?mode=print – Accessed 8 February 2008 – Attachment 4; ‘Russia’s party barred from polls’ 2007, BBC News, 28 January http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6308511.stm – Accessed 8 February 2008 – Attachment 3). White, a lecturer in Russian politics at the University of Birmingham, in a 2007 article writes: Yabloko’s failure in the 2003 Duma election did not reflect a sudden rejection of the party’s social-liberal agenda by the Russian electorate. The party’s share of the vote had been in constant decline since the first post-Soviet parliamentary election in 1993. Nevertheless, despite its relatively low level of support over ten years, Yabloko is a well established political party. The party’s leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, who worked with both Gorbachev and Yeltsin and stood for the presidency in 1996 and 2000, enjoys a high profile both in Russia and the West. As an overtly democratic, liberal reformist party with a strong pro- Western orientation, the fact that Yabloko has become a marginal force in Russian politics should be of concern to those in Russia and the West who are interested both in the establishment of democratic norms and the relative strength of political forces promoting democratic and market reforms in Russia (White, David 2007, ‘Victims of a Managed Democracy? Explaining the Electoral Decline of the Yabloko Party’, Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 15, No. 2, Spring, p.210 pp.209-229 – Attachment 7). A July 2007 article in The Economist noted that the Yabloko party tends to stay within bounds set by the Kremlin (‘Putin versus nobody serious’ 2007, The Economist, 26 July http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9558338&CFID=56209 59&CFTOKEN=e53cac8edd541197-F6D0AE46-B27C-BB00-0143E0D8AD098CF7 – Accessed 8 February 2008 – Attachment 8).