Opposition Coordination Council should not be viewed as alternative parliament - member
MOSCOW. Oct 27 (Interfax) - The Opposition Coordination Council, whose members were elected a week ago, should consider itself not an alternative parliament but a working body of the opposition movement, says Andrei Piontkovsky, a member of the bureau of the opposition group Solidarity.
"We have no right to declare ourselves an alternative parliament or a proto-parliament, because we have been elected not by the [entire] Russian population but only by quite a limited part of it. First of all, we are a headquarters of people having common ideas," Piontkovsky said at the first meeting of the Opposition Coordination Council on Saturday.
Piontkovsky proposed setting up a standing forum called Free Russia, which would comprise all those who voted in the elections of the Opposition Coordination Council. "The forum should become the main institution of the protest movement, and the Opposition Coordination Council its working body. Moreover, this forum can and should be expanded by including in it people who would like to join," he said.
Taking part in the meeting were 29 out of the 45 Opposition Coordination Council members, including Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov, Ilya Yashin and others.
