ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the party’s broad electoral strategy. It examines three key areas that may help to explain Yabloko’s inability to arrest its diminishing share of the vote – the party’s programmes, its social base, and its electoral campaigning strategy. The chapter suggests that contrary to some commonly held perceptions that attribute the party’s dwindling support to the unpopularity of its policies and its shrinking electorate, Yabloko’s policies have a wider potential appeal than voting figures suggest and that opportunities have existed to broaden the party’s electorate. Yabloko has increasingly sought to contrast the social element of its programme to the economic liberal approach. Yabloko’s electoral programmes have never been specifically designed with the intention of catching the mood of the Russian voter. Whilst Yabloko appeared to have come closer to capturing the electorate’s mood in 2003, its attacks on oligarchic structures were drowned out by the stronger rhetoric of other parties.
