Parnas: The People’s Freedom Party

The People’s Freedom Party, also known as “Parnas,” was founded on September 16, 2010. It is a coalition of four organizations: Russian People’s Democratic Union; Republican Party of Russia; Democratic Choice; and certain members of the Solidarity movement. None of the four organizations are registered political parties, although some had attempted to register and were denied by Russia’s Ministry of Justice.

The formation of the coalition led to a significant split within the Solidarity movement, which is itself an umbrella group for opposition movements. Some within Solidarity felt strongly that they should not be a part of a registered political party because, they argue, mainstream political efforts are either corrupt or the exclusive realm of actors chosen by the Kremlin. Thus, Garry Kasparov, one of Solidarity’s most vocal and best-known members did not join the new movement. Neither did the organization he leads as part of the Solidarity movement, United Civil Front.

The co-founders of PARNAS from left to right: Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Mylov and Vladimir Ryzkov during a press conference after the Ministry of Justice refused to register the organization as a political party.

Some Russia-watchers speculated that this party might prove to be Russia’s first successful attempt at a real grass-roots, non-Kremlin supported opposition political movement. First, the four leaders of Parnas’s component organizations, Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Boris Nemtsov, and Vladimir Milov are all experienced positions and former high-ranking government officials. Second, Parnas announced its formation at a time when the Kremlin was publically floating ideas to liberalize Russia’s political field. These included discontinuing registration requirements for political parties and lowering the electoral threshold for representation in the Duma from seven to three or five percent. However, while the threshold was eventually lowered to five percent, the Kremlin backed away from the idea of abolishing registration for political parties.

The People’s Freedom Party was denied registration in June of 2011. The official reasons were that the party had not provided for rotation of leadership in their party platform and had ineligible names on their party membership lists. The legality and justification for the decision was immediately called into question by Parnas and other organizations including the US Department of State. Indeed, many parties seem to be operating without the required “leadership rotation” clause in effect and the amount of “dead souls” on the membership lists were not enough to push the organization beneath (or even close to) the required number needed to register.

The organization decided not to resubmit their application and instead sued the Justice Ministry in an attempt to overturn the original application. Supporters insisted that resubmitting the documents would be futile and the Justice Ministry would continue to find reasons to deny the application; indeed, most parties that apply for registration are denied. Critics, however, argued that it showed that Parnas had never seriously intended to become a registered party and that it was acting more in the interests of the media for the Russian people.

The decision to not resubmit was contentiously made as was the debate on how to approach the elections in which Parnas would be barred from participating. Some held that a grand plan for holding Parnas-sponsored parallel elections across Russia at the same as the official elections would be effective at showing the true will of the people. Others held that the elections should be boycotted entirely and that low voter turnout would discredit the authorities. Still others felt that voters should be encouraged to arrive at voting stations but destroy their ballots as a protest measure that would also help prevent voter fraud. Others felt that voters should be encouraged to vote for any party except United Russia in an attempt to unseat Vladimir Putin’s base of power.

In the end, no central decision was made in how members should approach the elections. Other decisions discussed at the congress were also marked by disagreement and severe criticism of some members by others, leading at least one member, Vladimir Milov, to at one time leave the hall in protest.

The organization’s effectiveness thus remains in question. How they position themselves for the elections will likely be the true test of whether they will or can remain a political force.

The party platform rejected by the Justice Ministry is reproduced below in Russian and in a translation provided by SRAS.org as produced by students of translation working under supervision on the year-long Home and Abroad Program.