Let me tell you about the Democratic Coalition’s first steps in connection with the upcoming elections in three regions, where we plan to run as a united front and from organizational and political positions that are fundamentally new for the opposition.
A brief reminder:
Ten days ago, on April 17, a coalition agreement was signed between RPR-PARNAS and the Progress Party regarding the 2015 and 2016 elections. The Democratic Choice party immediately joined the agreement.
The coalition’s most important organizational principles are: a) A complete refusal to compete with separate party lists in the 2015 regional elections and the 2016 State Duma elections. The coalition will run on the PARNAS party list—the party that has an election-law exemption from collecting signatures. b) Candidate lists will be formed competitively, through primaries. In this way, the coalition makes itself open to everyone and gives the broadest possible range of people the opportunity to shape what it really looks like.
The next day, April 18, right at an RPR-PARNAS roundtable, a number of parties and movements announced that they were joining the agreement. The total number of parties rose to six.
On April 22, we announced specific plans: the 2015 elections in Novosibirsk, Kaluga, and Kostroma regions. The candidate lists will be formed through open primaries. A document outlining the principles for conducting the primaries, agreed upon by the Progress Party and PARNAS, was distributed to journalists.
After that, we:
A great deal of work lies ahead, and we are ready for it. Yesterday’s insane “elections” in Balashikha and today’s comments by the head of the Moscow Region Election Commission about observers show just how difficult all of this will be.
But we are not going to hand our country over to Irek Vildanov and other hypocritical crooks.
Our path through mid-September 2015 looks like this:
It will be a worthwhile journey—join us.