That screenshot with the funny names is not a list of joke parties for a board game. It is a list of political parties that are legally allowed to compete for power, represent the interests of citizens of the Russian Federation, and take part in elections. There are 73 of them, and I’d bet you’ve never heard the names of 65 of them in your life. Nevertheless, they are allowed to participate in elections.
But our Progress Party is barred from running in elections. Today, the Moscow City Court confirmed this once again.
Absurdly, even under conditions of a total political purge, a media blackout, and the fact that we are not allowed onto the ballot, the Progress Party ranks fourth in this February’s electoral ratings.
Even if it is only 1 percent, that still puts us ahead of parties represented in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) and receiving hundreds of millions from the state budget. If we are unregistered and kept out of elections yet still in fourth place, then in a real election we would be contenders for second place even under censorship and unequal access to resources.
That is exactly why the Progress Party is not being registered. The authorities want to live in a convenient world of Putin’s 84% and United Russia’s 45%—numbers no one challenges, because only those are allowed into the race who either never had any chance to begin with or are willing to play along by removing strong candidates from their lists.
So, I will repeat once again: the demand for free access to elections for the real opposition—first and foremost the Progress Party—is the most important political demand right now. Otherwise, in 2016 we will once again see a "fixed match" with pathetic parties and puppet candidates, after which they will say, "See? The opposition got nothing again. Nobody supports it."
PS In yesterday’s election, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov received 90.3% of the vote with turnout at 91%.
Is he a brilliant president who saved the "Uzbek world" and stands against godless "Gayrope" and "Pindostan" (derogatory Russian slang for Europe and the U.S.), turning Uzbekistan into a bastion of morality and an economic leader?
Looking at the citizens of that country who come here, that does not seem to be the case. But Uzbek television tells exactly that story, very much like Russian television does. And Uzbekistan’s "presidential administration" simply does not allow anyone into the election who might actually attract support.
And so it turns into: "If not Karimov, then who?"
The percentages claimed by Putin and United Russia are no more convincing than the Karimov-style, Turkmen-style, or Tajik-style ones. It is a fiction, and its main precondition is keeping the opposition off the ballot.
Demand free access to elections, and that 84% will dissipate like swamp fog, while the nasty toads slink back under their logs.