Russian opposition leader steps down

TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP/Getty Images

As is normally the case with developments within Russia’s political opposition, the news that Grigory Yavlinsky is stepping down as head of the liberal Yabloko party seems to be a bigger deal in the international press than in Russian papers, where it’s been mostly drowned out by the latest Euro Cup developments.

Once a wunderkind economist in Mikhail Gorbachev’s government, Yavlinsky has been one of the leading voices of Russian liberalism for the past 15 years, but in recent months has been in conflict with the more radical factions of his party. His successor Sergei Mitrokhin may find it hard to fill the shoes of the man who literally put the “Ya” in Yabloko.

If foreign NGOs were the only ones who voted for Russia’s leaders, Yabloko would probably have taken over the legislature in a landslide, but in the real world it has recently been unable to crack the 7 percent threshold needed for Duma membership or expand its membership beyond well-off, educated urbanites.

Yabloko could never be accused of selling out for Kremlin favor, nor has it ever engaged in the anti-establishment street politics of Garry Kasparov’s Other Russia coalition. In short, it is a very normal political party with a sensible platform in a political environment where such entities are increasingly obsolete. Yavlinsky may have decided that 15 years of pretending was enough.