Honest Elections Marchers Pledge to Take to Nevsky

By Sergey Chernov

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: January 25, 2012 (Issue # 1692)

The St. Petersburg organizers of the March for Honest Elections, a national rally calling for open and fair elections, insist they will march on Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main street, despite this being banned by City Hall.

On Monday, City Hall refused to authorize the march, citing “repairs and construction” along the proposed route along Nevsky Prospekt and Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa.

The organizers plan to start their march at 2 p.m. on Feb. 4 — a month before the presidential elections — near Oktyabrsky Concert Hall on Ligovsky Prospekt and end with a stationary rally on St. Isaac’s Square, near the Legislative Assembly and the City Elections Committee.

The authorities suggested an alternative route, from Yubileiny Sports Palace on the Petrograd Side to Ploshchad Sakharova on Vasilyevsky Island. The organizers said the authorities’ aim was to make the protest less prominent.

“Perhaps we’ll suggest some other routes starting from Oktyabrsky Concert Hall, for example, from Oktyabrsky along Suvorovsky Prospekt to City Hall, but the starting point will in any case remain the same and we’re not going to concede,” The Other Russia party’s local leader Andrei Dmitriyev said Tuesday.

He dismissed the route suggested by City Hall as unacceptable.

“First, the gathering point near Oktyabrsky has already been advertised, we’ve been campaigning, people have signed up for it on Facebook and other social networks, so they will go there in any case and it’s unrealistic to change it,” Dmitriyev said.

“Secondly, this is our city, and it’s for us to decide where we gather and where we go, rather than officials from City Hall.”

The majority of the organizers stand behind the original route, the United Civil Front’s executive director Olga Kurnosova said Tuesday.

“There are repairs going on on Nevsky all the time,” Kurnosova said.

“What amuses me most is that it’s not dangerous for pedestrians and cars that pass by there daily, it’s dangerous exclusively for opposition activists to march with political slogans. It seems that political slogans make bricks fall harder from the roofs.”

The opposition argues that the presidential campaign is just as dishonest as the Dec. 4 State Duma elections, which were marred by multiple violations and evoked large-scale protests across Russia.

“The presidential campaign is a continuation of what was happening in December,” Kurnosova said.

“I don’t think anybody has any doubts that this presidential campaign is not free or fair — there was no free nomination of candidates.”

The St. Petersburg opposition split last week over the participation of nationalist organizations in the protest. Yabloko Democratic Party, the LGBT rights organization Coming Out (Vykhod) and liberal youth groups vowed to hold their own, separate march on Nevsky Prospekt the same day.

City Hall refused to authorize that march as well, offering the same alternative route as to the main group, but at a different time, 10 a.m.

Dmitriyev described the offer as “gross mockery.”

“There are signals coming from them that they might agree to form a joint organizational committee and go to Oktyabrsky as well; it would be a good answer to these guys from City Hall who act in such a manner,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Strategy 31 rally in defense of freedom of assembly held on the 31st day of the months that have 31 days will take place on Jan. 31, as usual, though if in a “lighter” form, according to Dmitriyev.

City Hall refused to authorize the rally, as it has since the campaign started in St. Petersburg on Jan. 31, 2010, but a number of activists will come to protest in a form that is currently being discussed, he said.