On April 17, two parties signed an agreement on the Democratic Coalition. Today, April 20, the coalition includes six parties.
RPR-PARNAS (a party entitled to nominate candidates for the State Duma without collecting signatures, and the platform under which the coalition will run in the elections),
Progress Party (registered, but not allowed to participate in elections),
Democratic Choice (registered and allowed to participate in elections),
Civic Initiative (registered and allowed to participate in elections),
December 5 Party (not registered),
Libertarian Party (not registered).
In addition, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s “Open Russia” and the Solidarity movement have declared their support for the coalition.
As far as I can see—and this is very encouraging—experts and politicians have been quite positive in their assessments of our coalition. There is, of course, the much-quoted remark by Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the YABLOKO party, but I think he either spoke too hastily or was misunderstood:
What is even more encouraging is that the coalition’s participants are firmly committed to practical action. We want to be a coalition that not only sits at round tables in support of all good things, but also engages in real political struggle.
On April 22, we will hold a short briefing for journalists at our office, where we will talk about the regions in which the coalition will take part in elections, what we are planning, and how we will form people’s candidate lists through primaries, etc. Press accreditation is available here.
You probably have questions about the coalition, and I have probably already answered them during my appearance on Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station)—have a look. You can also watch the video of my speech at the round table this Saturday.
I. Rozhdestvensky — The opposition has united rather unexpectedly—perhaps unexpectedly, or perhaps not for all of us.
O. Zhuravleva — Or perhaps it was to be expected.
I. Rozhdestvensky — Alexei Navalny, leader of the Progress Party, is on the line with us. Alexei Anatolyevich, can you hear us?
A. Navalny — Yes, hello, good afternoon!
O. Zhuravleva — Good afternoon! I. Rozhdestvensky — What is the essence of this alliance?
A. Navalny — You just cited a very telling statistic—or rather, polling data—that 95% of people believe Putin’s “Direct Line” (his annual televised call-in show) is needed only by Vladimir Putin himself.
O. Zhuravleva — I should say right away, that’s a statistic from our listeners.
A. Navalny — Well, since your listeners are a substantial number of voters whose support the new coalition is seeking, what I want to say is that we created this alliance because there is a real demand for it. The demand is this: you, us, and a huge number of people living not only in major cities but across the country have no political representation. Which deputy in the State Duma, or group of deputies, or party in the State Duma or the Moscow City Duma represents your interests? There is no such party. And now we are creating an electoral coalition in order to run in elections and provide that representation. This is actually a very important issue…
I. Rozhdestvensky — And who will be part of this coalition?
A. Navalny — This coalition includes the RPR-PARNAS party, the Progress Party, and we have just received the news that the Democratic Choice party has also joined the coalition. Already now, in 2015, we want to remove the ambiguity and uncertainty that always surrounds democrats and democratic unity, because there are several different parties, including registered ones. And every time, right before an election, we end up having the same painful and tiresome discussion about which party platform to run on, and so on. So now, while there is still plenty of time before the 2016 State Duma elections, we want to settle this question once and for all, set aside all ambitions, resolve all disputes, and invest all resources and efforts into a single party. Moreover, the most important part of this alliance—the whole point of it—is not simply to cram members of the Progress Party or PARNAS into one joint list. No, that’s not really it. This is a broad alliance. We are creating a mechanism that will allow any decent, capable people to enter the list through competition, through a primary-style procedure. In other words, if in the city of Voronezh there is a good, outstanding local activist who simply does not have a party that can nominate him, we are providing such a party.
O. Zhuravleva — Alexei, the obvious question is: who will determine how “good” these candidates are? Good in whose opinion, and by what principle?
A. Navalny — I already said: we will have a competitive mechanism—primaries. If we are talking about, say, Voronezh or Moscow, then the residents of Moscow or Voronezh will look at the candidates taking part in debates, hear them explain why Petrov rather than Ivanov, and then this competitive procedure will kick in, and people themselves will form a genuine people’s list. In other words, it won’t be me, Kasyanov, or some party bosses appointing people. All of us together will decide who should be on our “dream list,” form it, then work for it during the election, and afterward those people will represent our interests in the Duma.
O. Zhuravleva — Alexei, you mentioned ambitions, which are very often brought up in connection with the opposition’s inability to unite—if I may put it that way. Are you prepared to set aside your own ambitions and give up a place on the list to one of your new colleagues, so to speak?
A. Navalny — You know, for me that is the easiest thing of all, because under current legislation I have no right to run for office at all—it is simply forbidden for me.
O. Zhuravleva — Does that mean that if you were allowed to run, you would not have agreed to such an alliance?
A. Navalny — It means only one thing: first, it is easier for me to do this, and second, I am a consistent supporter of the primary process. I believe that first place should go to whoever receives the strongest initial support in the primary election—not in the nationwide election, but in the primary. That is the only way we can determine who is better, because indeed, you may like one candidate and I may like another. Naturally, politicians are ambitious people, and they should be ambitious, but each of them must submit to the judgment of the public, and only in that way can we decide who is better in a more or less fair manner.
I. Rozhdestvensky — Alexei, I’m not entirely clear on how these primaries will work. Will voting take place within the parties that have joined together, or how exactly?
A. Navalny — No, you see, the procedure has not yet been fully determined, and it may vary. I think it may differ from region to region. The main thing is that there is agreement in principle that such a procedure must exist. My personal position is that it should, of course, be an open primary. It should not be limited to party members, because that would defeat the purpose. In other words, you should have exactly the same opportunity to vote in these primaries as I do, because, I repeat, we are not creating merely a union of parties—we are creating a broad bloc that will seek the support of a large number of people, and each of those people should have the opportunity to take part in shaping it.
I. Rozhdestvensky — Listen, the opposition tried to create something like this in the Moscow City Duma elections. It did not end very well. Why should it succeed this time?
A. Navalny — First, there were no real attempts to create such a bloc in the Moscow City Duma elections, because right before those elections changes were made to the legislation that deprived PARNAS of the ability to nominate candidates—that is the first point. Second, and most importantly, there was no party list in the Moscow City Duma elections. Now we are talking first and foremost about a political list. Our State Duma will be formed on a 50-50 basis: 50% single-mandate candidates, 50% party list. This year, in 2015, there will also be elections to regional legislative assemblies, and a significant part of those bodies is also formed through party lists. That is where the main battles are taking place now, because it is easier to divide up single-mandate races and come to agreements about them. And that is precisely why, already in the 2015 regional elections, we will test this policy in practice: in a number of regions we will put forward joint lists, and we will not simply abandon them there, as so often happens, to fend for themselves—we will run real, intensive election campaigns.
O. Zhuravleva — Alexei, you say you are creating this alliance so that people can be represented in government bodies. Why do you think there are many such people? What is that conclusion based on? Who are these people?
A. Navalny — The answer is obvious: you are such people, and I am such a person…
O. Zhuravleva — There are three of us in this situation: me, Ilya Rozhdestvensky, and Alexei Navalny. I mean, what measurements or indicators are you referring to when you say this?
A. Navalny — First, there is polling data showing that there are many such people. Second, I myself ran in the Moscow mayoral election and still received nearly 30% of the vote. The people who voted for me have no political representation whatsoever. And we can see that the people who took part in mass protests in Moscow, rallies and so on, also have no political representation. There is no point arguing about percentages right now. You see, there are three of us here, and we have no political representation. So what is our solution? A party is now emerging that claims it will prove to the three of us—and I, as a member of the coalition, will be trying to prove to the two of you—that this alliance is something that seeks and wants to rely on your support and make it into the State Duma. Quite simply, such a party does not exist now, it did not exist before, and we have created it. I believe this is a major breakthrough.
I. Rozhdestvensky — And in the regions, do you think such an alliance is also needed? Is there demand there as well for this kind of opposition bloc?
A. Navalny — Absolutely. We cannot assume that in Moscow we are all such advanced, decent people, while in the regions…
I. Rozhdestvensky — No, but why do you conclude that there is demand for it there? Did you conduct polling, or what?
A. Navalny — I am not merely drawing a conclusion—I know it. Look at the largest cities where real elections actually took place: in Novosibirsk…
I. Rozhdestvensky — Novosibirsk is a special case, a very special one.
A. Navalny — Is Yekaterinburg also a special case? Is Petrozavodsk also a special case? Listen, everywhere opposition candidates were actually registered for elections, they won substantial representation. Look, we have already listed some of Russia’s largest cities: Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and Moscow, where I ran. It is simply a fact that we have support of up to 30%, even despite the lack of money, censorship in the media, and so on. So the demand is in fact enormous.
O. Zhuravleva — Alexei, talk of various kinds of alliances has been going on for a very long time. What became the decisive factor now? Why were you able to agree on this alliance now, in your view?
A. Navalny — I think many factors influenced this. And I am sure that one of the important ones was the murder of Boris Nemtsov. Of course, there is always this tiresome talk about some point of no return, that something has happened which changes everything—and we seem to have that three times a month—but the situation with Nemtsov really did change things and, it seems to me, really did create a new political reality. All of that gave the process a strong push.
I. Rozhdestvensky — And how difficult were the negotiations on unification in general?
A. Navalny — They are difficult, of course. You have to understand that every person who creates their own party has people behind them. People have invested time and money in building their own party. Besides, why do people create a separate new party instead of joining RPR-PARNAS? Because they disagree about certain things, they do not like the leaders, and so on. In other words, this is a complicated political structure; there are no easy solutions here. But nevertheless, we have created a united bloc, and I am very glad about that.
I. Rozhdestvensky — Might you have rushed a bit in creating it? Perhaps it should have been formed closer to 2016?
A. Navalny — No, no, no, we definitely did not rush. On the contrary, we are short on time. As I said, we want to create not an empty, symbolic structure, but one that we will try to use in practice right away for the first time. In the regions—in 11 regions—elections will already be held in September 2015. The electoral lists will be finalized in June, so in May we must begin testing the primary procedure or some other competitive procedure, building it, setting up this system, campaigning, registering people, and so on. This is colossal organizational work, and it has to begin as soon as possible if we want results.
O. Zhuravleva — Will this alliance require new funding and new resources? Or, on the contrary, will there simply be more of them because you have united?
A. Navalny — There will certainly be more of them because we have united, absolutely more, because each group will stop spending on itself and will spend more on the common structure. We are not going to invest in the infrastructure of any brands other than RPR-PARNAS right now, even though, of course, many members of the Progress Party find that painful. In that sense, we are swallowing our pride. In addition, we proceed from the assumption that this new united entity, this new political reality, will in principle appeal to a large number of people. So far I see only positive feedback, and that will affect the amount of resources available.
I. Rozhdestvensky — In general, the authorities are trying to push you out of the elections, out of participation in this process, out of voting, by every possible means—there are several criminal cases and so on, that is all clear. Don’t you think that by creating such an alliance now, you may provoke a new wave of persecution… O. Zhuravleva — In short, put your colleagues at risk.
A. Navalny — Whether we put them at risk or not, such a scenario is certainly possible. Just imagine this thought experiment again: put yourself in Putin’s place. He sees that a real structure is being created. They had hoped the democrats would keep quarreling endlessly, but instead they have built an actual structure, they are ready to run in elections, and there is a very high chance they will make it through, gain political representation, and there will be several dozen people in a representative body asserting their rights. Naturally, they will build their own strategy against ours, based on intimidation on the one hand and on provoking splits, bribery, and so on on the other. We certainly expect some kind of response. Well, that is part of our struggle.
O. Zhuravleva — Do you already have a common slogan?
A. Navalny — We have not gotten to that level of detail yet. I support a professional approach: the slogan should not be invented by me or Mikhail Mikhailovich Kasyanov. That is a major task for professionals. And for the specific elections in 2015, I think each region will have its own slogan, because each region has its own particular characteristics.
O. Zhuravleva — Thank you very much! I. Rozhdestvensky — Thank you. That was Alexei Navalny, leader of the Progress Party, an opposition leader, as he is commonly called…. O. Zhuravleva — One of the leaders of the alliance.