The chairwoman of Russia's liberal Yabloko party says it is prepared to enter into a coalition with the Parnas opposition movement if the new bloc will support Yabloko founder Grigory Yavlinsky in the 2018 presidential election.
Emilia Slabunova said on January 29 that her party welcomed an offer by Parnas, which is headed by former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, to form a coalition for the Duma elections scheduled for September.
She added that if the proposed coalition was successful and able to get representation in the next Duma, Yabloko would be open to forming a single legislative faction and to cooperating on legislative initiatives.
Slabunova said that if Parnas agreed to endorse the Yabloko political platform and support Yavlinsky, Yabloko was ready to begin discussing a joint slate of Duma candidates immediately.
The Russian Duma currently includes representatives of the ruling United Russia party and three parties that are widely viewed as Kremlin-friendly pseudo opposition parties: the Communist Party, A Just Russia, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.