Saturday, June 10, 2017

Long-Haul Drivers’ Strike Contributing to Rise in Protest Activity in Moscow, Expert Says


Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 10 – The long-haul drivers’ strike against the Plato fee system has been playing “a significant role” in the growth of protest attitudes among Muscovites, adding to their anger about the city’s renovation plans and about the corruption highlighted by Aleksey Navalny’s film, according to Oleg Ivanov.

            Ivanov, head of the Center for Resolution of Social Conflicts, said that Muscovite anger had increased primarily because of the city government’s plans to tear down the five-storey khrushchoby apartment blocks but that the drivers’ strike and the Navalny film made the city’s residents more ready to take to the streets (niros.ru/obschestvo/95446-v-moskve-nablyudaetsya-vysokiy-uroven-protestnyh-nastroeniy.html).

            Meanwhile, the drivers suffered a setback in Tatarstan. There, a committee of the republic’s State Council refused to take up a draft measure calling for the cancellation of the Plato system.  Its advocate, Artem Prokofyev, argued that the Council should act because the people and business wanted them to. But the committee chair refused to hold a hearing on it (prokazan.ru/news/view/118212).

            That may not be the end of the story in Kazan, however. The chairman told Prokofyev that he could rework his proposal and submit it again.

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