Leader Yabloko resigns
24 June 2008
During the Yabloko party congress on 21 June, Grigori Yavlinski (56) resigned as leader of the liberal opposition party. Yavlinski was the leader of Yabloko for fifteen year and in the early 1990s played an important role by the development of a market economy in Russia. However, critique on Yavlinski grew within the party after Yabloko failed to gain representation in the Duma in the latest parliamentary elections in 2003 and 2007. After the failed elections of December 2007, there were increasing calls for his resignation. Yavlinski will be succeeded as party leader by Sergey Mitrochin, leader of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. With the election of Mitrochin, Yabloko seems to have chosen for the moderate wing of the party as opposed to the more radical wing, which is led, amongst others, by Yabloko St. Petersburg leader Maksim Reznik.
