Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Senate Speaker Predicts Drop In Protest Moods, Slams Magnitskiy Bill

JRL

The speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, has forecast a diminishment of protests in the country for lack of any substantive socio-economic precursors, as well as a compelling programme from opposition leaders. She also doubted that the US Magnitskiy bill would achieve anything constructive and dismissed speculations that the senator-mum of a prominent opposition leader was being persecuted for her daughter’s civic activity. She made her comments in an interview with the Interfax news agency, which published excerpts in separate reports on 12 July. The full text of the interview will be published on the agency’s website at www.interfax.ru.

On protests and opposition leaders

Matviyenko said that she doubted that the existing opposition leaders had the moral credentials to champion a protest movement.

“I think that people who are vying for opposition leadership roles have to be completely honest and clear from the point of view of reputation. Only this gives a moral right to not only lead people, but also to criticize the authorities,” she said.

To this end, she supposed that “judging by everything, today’s oppositionists have only a handful of truly like-minded associates. No-one is stopping them from creating a party or offering their programme for the development of the country, but all of their vigorous activity doesn’t spread past Sadovoye koltso (ring road in central Moscow).”