If you hold democratic views, then before every election you have most likely heard the appeal: vote for us, we are the most democratic party, we should become deputies.
But how many times have you heard a party say: help us decide who should become deputies on our party list. Or a candidate say: listen, help me get onto this democratic party’s list, because I would make a better deputy than this person or that one.
I bet you have never heard anything like that, because until now there simply has not been any format in which voters could influence how the list was put together. There is some party leadership in Moscow that decides who is the best democrat and deserves to become a candidate for deputy, and who does not.
I am absolutely convinced that this is a key problem for the opposition, no less serious than election fraud.
In simplified form, it looks like this: party leaders appoint candidates at their own discretion — volunteers are not interested in working for candidates appointed at the party leaders’ discretion — party leaders need money to replace volunteers with paid staff — nobody wants to give money to party leaders because they appointed the candidates at their own discretion.
The predictable result of this is 2.5% in elections.
There are democratic-minded voters, after all—in any major city they make up as much as 30%, and sometimes even 50%. The only thing is that these voters are discerning and want to take part in the decision-making process.
Our democratic coalition is firmly determined to put an end to this vicious practice. Our electoral lists in the Novosibirsk, Kaluga, and Kostroma regions will be formed by the views and votes of the residents of those regions.
If you want to become a candidate for deputy and get onto the list, you do not need to go to Moscow and make arrangements with Navalny or Kasyanov. You need to become a candidate in the democratic coalition’s primaries and convince the people of Novosibirsk that you would be the best candidate.
Write, campaign, go to meetings, shake 10,000 hands. Ivanov must convince everyone that he is better than Petrov, defeat him in fair primaries, and then both Ivanov’s and Petrov’s volunteers will work for a list that includes them.
How are we currently looking for primary candidates? First and foremost, through political negotiations. We meet with local opinion leaders, the best-known public figures, and party activists, and explain to them how the list will be formed and that this will truly be a fair contest without a predetermined outcome.
But the primaries are open. It is entirely possible that somewhere out there sits a political genius and the ideal deputy, someone who currently has nowhere to turn because everywhere there is a party mafia and they will not let you in. Voters need such a person.
For this reason, starting today, the Democratic Coalition is opening registration for primary candidates, whose results will be used to form the RPR-PARNAS list, the platform on which the democrats will go into the elections.
Candidates may register until May 31, and we will see a real political contest among the most committed of them. With campaigning, platforms, and debates.
And only after that will we—well, in the person of the residents of the Kaluga, Kostroma, and Novosibirsk regions—decide in a fair vote which of them will become candidates for deputy.
Long live democracy!
Volunteer sign-up for those who want to help us prepare the primaries is here.