There are many different things we need to remember about him, but there’s one important thing we really need to remember very well, because we’ll need to recall it very soon—after July 10, when signature collection ends.
Every independent candidate for the Moscow City Duma must do something nearly impossible: collect 6,000 signatures (allowing for some to be thrown out) in 20 days in order to run. You can very easily see that all the candidates on this list are doing an enormous amount of work: recruiting volunteers, raising money, applying for pickets, making a fuss when they aren’t allowed to hold pickets, looking for handwriting experts, recruiting more volunteers, and then recruiting volunteers all over again.
Even if you wanted to keep this kind of work secret, it would be impossible. It involves many dozens of people. You need recruitment announcements. Signature gatherers stand in the street and go door to door; people see them and notice them.
Signatures are collected at rallies and at any other suitable events.
But when it comes time for registration, we’ll once again see a parade of United Russia members masquerading as independents, along with all sorts of fake “opposition” candidates, who will pop up out of nowhere and say: *- and here are my 5,000 signatures. I personally collected them all. how wonderful, every signature is valid, you’re registered,* the Sobyanin election commission will reply.
But the conversation will be different with the independents who actually collected signatures. The traditional decision has already been made to check 100% of the signature sheets, and once again we’ll watch the whole routine of “so what if you confirm it—we still think the signature isn’t yours.”
Here, try an experiment: see if you can find any trace of signature collection by candidates from “Civic Platform,” or by Yarmolnik, Konstantinov, or Vyshegorodtsev. The only trace of such activity appears on the party’s website: The head of the party’s Moscow branch, Moscow’s business ombudsman Mikhail Vyshegorodtsev (planning to run in District No. 37: the Akademichesky, Gagarinsky, and Lomonosovsky districts, and part of Prospekt Vernadskogo district) said that so far he has collected about 3,000 of the 5,000 required signatures. https://civilplatform.ru/2278
How can you collect 3,000 signatures without anyone noticing at all? Where are these signature gatherers? Where are these volunteers? Where are the pickets and the calls for supporters to help?
Of course, one could assume that Vyshegorodtsev—a former United Russia member who became the head of Prokhorov’s party in Moscow—is so popular in the city that Muscovites are flocking to the party office in droves to sign for him.
But it is far more likely that we’ll see the same situation as in the presidential election: nobody actually collects signatures, boxes stuffed with the user manual for the Yo-mobile (a failed Russian hybrid car project) get delivered to the election commission, and the commission registers the candidate anyway so it can tell us, “See? We do have opposition candidates here.”
This applies to all of their candidates. Try finding a signature collection point or announcements from volunteers who supposedly need these signatures.
All you’ll find is this masterpiece of an announcement, which would make anyone who has actually collected signatures laugh hysterically:
_Any Muscovite officially registered in the listed districts and supporting Civic Platform’s candidates may leave a signature for them. Reception office address: 13/1 Tverskoy Boulevard, Entrance 9. Collection is open every weekday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (on Fridays until 6:00 p.m.) through July 9. You must bring your passport. _
The only thing missing is a lunch break.
I won’t even say anything about the “primary winners.” There’s even less pretense there than with Prokhorov’s people.
Most winners of the so-called “My Moscow” civic primaries submitted their paperwork and began collecting signatures in the first two or three days after the election was announced, gaining several days through sheer speed. As staffers for several such candidates told Vedomosti, they plan to submit their signature sheets as early as next week. Of the required 5,220 signatures, more than 4,000 have already been collected, Olga Yaroslavskaya, the primary winner in District No. 2 (Kurkino, North Tushino, and South Tushino) and principal of School No. 1298, told Vedomosti. http://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/28324871/nepodpisnaya-pogoda?full#cut
Take Yaroslav Kuzminov, the rector of HSE (Higher School of Economics), who is running for deputy. He’s also a self-nominated candidate. Have you seen even one of his signature gatherers? Or any appeal from Kuzminov himself asking people to submit signatures for him? He probably could collect them, but he isn’t doing it. He considers it beneath his dignity. He isn’t really running in an election—he’s made a deal.
Don’t even try to find anything at all about signature collection by such formidable candidates as Valery Skobinov, Alexander Milyavsky, Irina Velikanova, and Mikhail Antontsev.
Apparently, 5,000 people came and signed for each of them on the very first day. In one great burst of enthusiasm.
This is not some minor nitpick; what is happening is a crucial fact that we must take into account when forming our view of the candidate registration stage and, more broadly, of these elections as a whole.
P.S. A reminder: the real candidates need your help. Find yours on this list.
Update:
Our apologies. It turns out that HSE rector Kuzminov is in fact collecting signatures after all. Half an hour ago, he announced that he would be doing so from Friday through Sunday. A reminder: signature collection ends on July 10.