“We begin our presidential race with young people since our party and our campaign are aimed at the perspective and the future,” said YABLOKO Bureau member Ivan Bolshakov opening the forum. “Putin and his team are afraid of the future and take the perspective away from us. Our generation must change the course, turn the indicator and divert our train forward, to new Russia,” he noted.

YABLOKO Chair Emilia Slabunova said that YABLOKO is ready to make an offer to all the young people of Russia who want to see the future and shape it in accordance with their talents and abilities.

“YABLOKO is a truly oppositional and open party. Any young person can be sure that our party is ready to welcome and accompany him both as a young politician and as a voter,” she explained. According to Emilia Slabunova, YABLOKO “has a lot of young people in the governing bodies of the party and the regional branches. During the 2016 election campaign every third candidate at the election of all levels was under the age of 35”.

Finally, the main thing that YABLOKO can offer to young people is our candidate for President of Russia – Grigory Yavlinsky. “He knows what to do in order to take our country out of the present state of affairs. He is a very brave person. Being in politics for many years he did not lose hope, strength and assurance that this wall and this asphalt, not even asphalt but concrete, can be broken. He is guided by the immense responsibility for the future of the country, he is a true patriot,” Slabunova said.

YABLOKO Deputy Chair Nikolai Rybakov noted that “those in power do not realise that they should find the solutions to the modern challenges in the future, not in the past”. Under the present state of affair young people have two choices – either to leave the country or to take the situation into their own hands and participate in the presidential campaign.

Galina Shirshina told those present about the experience of the Karelian branch of YABLOKO and the way they managed to win the mayoral election in Petrozavodsk, the capital of the Republic of Karelia, in 2013. She explained that working in YABLOKO’s team “is an interesting experience which requires constant personal development, professional growth and mobilisation of external and internal resources in order to solve difficulties which may occur”.

Kirill Goncharov, a 24 years old head of four YABLOKO’s election campaigns called his peers to do their best for Yavlinsky’s victory in the presidential race.

In his speech presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky said that the essence of the coming election of the head of the State was that the country should move forward and stop going round in circles.

According to Yavlinsky, the about-turn towards the past is a global trend and “in this respect Putin is very close to Trump”. This is also about Brexit and the growth of nationalism in Europe, for example, “the rising star of the French political Olympus Marine Le Pen”. “There are tendencies of returning to the past in many spheres and fields – “it used to be okay then!” – and there is lack of understanding with regard to the future. There is this main slogan “Make America Great Again” even in such a country as the United States. “Again” means going back, it is the exploitation of the past,” Yavlinsky stressed.

Yavlinsky emphasized that the topic of the past had been exploited in Russia for a very long time. “President Putin does not see any future, he lives in the past, therefore he wants to capture a part of Ukraine as if it had some positive meaning for our country. There is nothing but shame, damage and crime about at,” he said.

At the same time Yavlinsky is sure that Russia has the potential and resources in order to provide a rapid translational motion of advance for our country. In order to do so we need to change the government, stop “the policy of conflicts and pressure on the neighboring countries” and achieve the lifting of sanctions.

“Our responsibility is to provide a decent future but only you can fulfil it. If you put your personal, private interests in the first place, Russia will not be able to become a decent modern country, it is simply a fact,” he noted.

“No such a thing as “again” exists for us. We have another task – to make Russia a modern and rapidly developing country where life, dignity and respect for a person will be the priority. I invite you to work for it,” Yabloko’s presidential candidate concluded.

The New YABLOKO – Young Generation Forum opened a series of meetings of Grigory Yavlisnky and his election representatives. Young people from 30 regions of Russia participated in the Forum.

A candidate for President of Russia has the right to nominate up to 600 election representatives, the party, which nominated the candidate, can also nominate 100 election representatives.

YABLOKO made a decision to nominate Grigory Yavlinsky as candidate for President of Russia at the party congress in February 2016. The party claims that Yavlinsky represents a real alternative to the incumbent President Vladimir Putin.

Grigory Yavlinsky participated in the presidential race three times. In 1996 he finished forth, in 2000 he finished third. He was withdrawn from the presidential race of 2012 on political grounds.