The social liberal party Yabloko in a new project of their election agenda provides for legalisation of cryptocurrencies. For the first time, the issue is brought to the State Duma in a political context.

Yabloko (“apple”) is one of the oldest political parties in contemporary Russia active since 1993. Their newly crafted election programme was created with regard to proposals contributed by voters through the party’s website. The resulting document contains 10 chapters, each developed with the help of both internal and external experts.

“All our initiatives are centred around an individual living in Russia,” declares the party’s founder and head of its Political Committee Grigory Yavlinsky. “We strongly oppose the idea of the ‘special path’ of development for our country, it is impossible outside the high road of civilisation,” said the party’s Chair Emilia Slabunova.

Including the legal status of cryptocurrencies into a political election, programme is regarded as a serious breakthrough by Russian fintech community. So far, Yabloko is the first and the only party to raise the issue at a high political level.

“Somebody must start talking about this. However, it may seem pointless as an election manifesto,” told CoinFox a source close to the Communist Party of Russian Federation. “I have not heard any discussion about including [this issue] into the election programme,” CoinFox was informed earlier by a source close to another party, Spravedlivaya Rossiya (“Fair Russia”).

Last parliamentary elections in 2011 brought Yabloko 3.43% votes with the electoral threshold of 5%. The next elections will take place on 18 September 2016.

Yabloko's economic agenda includes such suggestions as reducing the number of the military to 800,000 persons, minimizing budget defense expenses to 3% GDP and raising the expenses on education, culture and fundamental science. Besides, the party proposes to renounce the construction of new atomic power plants and waste-burning plants, and wants to introduce the single compensation tax to minimize the consequences of the privatization which took part after the USSR downfall.

The legal status of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is not yet determined in Russia. Russian Ministry of Justice has not approved a draft bill criminalising cryptocurrencies despite the pressure from its the Ministry of Finance. As CoinFox reported earlier, some officials at the Ministry of Justice demand additional grounds to be provided for the criminalisation of issuance and circulation of cryptocurrencies, because so far the claim that they pose any danger to the society “seems dubious”.

The Interior Ministry also disagreed with the draft. They consider it unreasonable to overburden the police with additional duties related to monitoring of cryptocurrencies’ mining and use.

The new version of the draft law is expected from the Ministry of Finance by the end of summer.

Ludmila Brus