Well, our party has reached a very interesting moment. As you may remember, we found ourselves in the position of a “Schrödinger’s party” — either we’re allowed to take part in elections, or we’re not.
The law says that once a party registers 43 regional branches, it automatically has the right to participate in elections.
And on October 2, the Progress Party’s lawyers submitted 44 certificates of registration for regional branches to the Ministry of Justice.
On the other hand, all sorts of Kremlin-friendly newspapers keep publishing anonymous “source comments” saying that the Progress Party will not be allowed onto the ballot.
This ambiguity also fits the Kremlin’s basic position: in public appearances, all these Volodins and Badovskys screech that the opposition is allowed to run in elections, while in practice no one is let in.
We decided not to sit around waiting and instead test everything in practice. In other words, to do what parties are created for — run in elections. We looked for the nearest ones, even at the most local level, and checked whether we had candidates.
We found that by-elections will be held in December in the Moscow Region, in the cities of Reutov and Kashira. These are the first elections announced since October 3 — the moment we gained the right to nominate our own candidates.
So we decided to take part in them, especially since we do have candidates.
Yesterday, the general meeting of the Moscow Region branch of the Progress Party took place, and it nominated candidates for the party’s first formal election campaign.
On December 21, a by-election will be held for a seat on the Reutov Council of Deputies in single-member electoral district No. 14. The Progress Party is nominating a well-known local activist there — Anna Korchmar. We are submitting the paperwork in Reutov today.
On December 7, repeat elections will be held for deputies to the Council of Deputies of the municipal formation of the urban settlement of Kashira. Our nominee is Progress Party lawyer Ivan Zhdanov.
Very soon, we will all find out whether the Progress Party will be allowed to run in the elections, and what all the Kremlin’s incantations are really worth when they claim Putin’s approval rating is so high that they have nothing to fear from electoral competition.