“I will take part in the 2018 presidential election” is still not quite the right way to put it, even though that’s exactly what I say in the video my campaign team sent out this morning to our supporter database.
A more accurate way to say it would be this: I am calling on all of us to make the 2018 election a real election. This is no easy task, because Russia has not had a genuine election since 1996. We have to turn a procedure that has meant nothing for 20 years into a real contest of ideas, platforms, approaches, and campaigns.
And I want to be your voice and your representative in that election. A real politician, connected to people and representing their interests.
Many of you have followed my work for years and know that I have no oligarchs behind me, no “Kremlin towers” (rival factions within the Russian elite), no siloviki (security-service and law-enforcement power brokers), and no liberals backing me. I don’t need any of that for this campaign if you support me.
In 2013, during a sudden snap campaign that lasted three months, we proved to ourselves that it is possible to run a campaign and achieve strong results without major sponsors, even when the biggest media outlets either ignore you or lie about you.
We have more than a year until the 2018 election, and we can do all of this if we work hard together.
I know full well what difficulties lie ahead. The corruption investigations I have conducted in recent years make one thing absolutely clear to me: there is very little Putin and the Kremlin will stop at to hold on to power—a power that fell into their hands by chance from Yeltsin and turned a group of mid-level St. Petersburg officials into billionaires, among the richest people in the world, ruling a vast country as if it were their private property.
I understand perfectly well what election fraud means. I understand perfectly well the coming flood of slander from the frenzied Kiselyovs and Solovyovs (pro-Kremlin TV propagandists).
I fully understand how difficult the debate over “take part in the election or boycott it” will be. It is a complicated question with no universal answer, and I will argue my case for as long as it takes.
I understand how hard fundraising will be—for a nationwide campaign we will need to raise at least ten times more than we raised for the 2013 mayoral race.
Difficulties do not scare me or my team—you can see the conditions we have been working under in recent years, and yet we have been successful in our work—because I know the most important thing of all:
- There are tens of millions of people in this country who will be left without a candidate and without political representation unless you and I together make this a real election.
It is a truly strange situation in Russia: the authorities and pollsters report 84% support, but when we conduct qualitative research—focus groups and interviews—we see this “abandoned majority.” The authorities are on their own, and the people are on their own. The authorities do what they want. People no longer even hope that somewhere in those high corridors of power there is anyone who cares about them.
You can see it yourself in any conversation: mixed together you hear phrases like “they’re all thieves,” “there’s no hope,” “there’s no future, we’re afraid for our children,” and “well, Putin of course—who else is there?”
And today’s polling on the subject says the same:
And this is happening precisely because even opposition politicians often take part in elections only as a kind of make-believe exercise.
- Well, of course we really want to take part, but you know, because of fraud and censorship we have no chance anyway. So for now we’ll just proceed carefully. So as not to upset those people. And then later, when our historic chance comes, we’ll step onto the stage and wow everyone.
This is one of the most important reasons why I made this decision. I have heard all sorts of political consultants say a million times: “Now is not the time, 2018 is a false start. Look, everyone is lying low and waiting. Anyone who goes now will be crushed. We need to wait for the right moment.”
So we keep waiting for that moment. Putin has been in power for 17 years—already longer than Brezhnev (the long-serving Soviet leader)—and still we wait.
There are hardly any free media outlets left—and still we wait for the right moment.
Political prisoners are no longer counted in ones, but in hundreds—and still we wait for the right moment, working for some distant future.
The economy and people’s real incomes have been falling for a fourth straight year—and still we wait for the right moment, because the authorities are still strong.
Police colonels are found with billions in cash at home—it’s still not the time, we must wait for the right moment, the “Ukrainian effect” has not yet worn off.
Sechin and Putin run the state oil company Rosneft as if it were their personal shawarma stand—it’s still not the time, we must wait for the right moment, now we have the “Syrian effect.”
If that is how we think, then the time will never come for an election in which we decide to fight for real—there will always be some new “effect” to manufacture.
I’ll put it this way: Russia is my country, I live here, my family is here, and for me the right moment is always now. And I am calling all of you to join me in this election not because of political tactics, but because it is what ought to be done and what is right.
We have one country, and there will be no other. One time and one life. The Beautiful Russia of the Future will not build itself. If we keep waiting, we will not even notice before these people have been in power not for 17 years but for 37. Medicine and plastic surgery are advancing—they’ll be standing on the Mausoleum (Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square) looking brand new, talking about the capture of Palmyra and about how, no matter how hard our enemies tried, they failed to build a unipolar world.
Over the past few months we have conducted large-scale polling, and I can say with confidence that I am entering this election with a platform supported by the majority. And at the same time—which matters greatly to me, of course—I am not compromising my real views on a single point.
Today, at https://2018.navalny.com/, we are publishing not a detailed manifesto but the main points of the platform. The full program will be presented at a meeting with supporters.
In short:
Russia’s main problems are the seizure of power by a narrow group of people and the monstrous inequality that has resulted from it. Inequality of wealth and inequality of opportunity.
Eighty-eight percent of the nation’s wealth belongs to 0.1% of the population—this is the real situation, and it is catastrophic.
But even official data show Russia as a world leader in inequality, with 74.5% of the wealth belonging to 1% of the population.
And what is distinctive about wealth in Russia is how often it has been acquired illegally and unjustly. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these are not brilliant entrepreneurs who built businesses, but beneficiaries of large-scale privatization and state officials.
To fight inequality, we need the following:
The richest—the raw-materials oligarchs and kings of state contracts—must pay a substantial tax on their fortunes. An equivalent of the Windfall Tax successfully used in the United Kingdom in 1997.
The middle class must stop being robbed, have its taxes reduced, and be allowed to work. For example, sole proprietors with low incomes will be exempt altogether from taxes, regulation, and bookkeeping requirements. The budget gets next to nothing from them anyway. They should be left alone to work, grow, support their families, and pay official, fully declared wages.
The least well-off must be guaranteed a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles. In many countries the minimum wage is set by law, and it is time for Russia to do the same. A person working full time in modern Russia cannot be paid less than 25,000 rubles. A lower wage creates more problems than savings. A pension cannot be lower than the subsistence minimum.
There is a housing problem specific to Russia. It is a major part of what creates poverty in the country. Millions of families struggle without apartments of their own, live in rented housing, and pay enormous mortgage interest rates. For most people, mortgages are completely out of reach.
To address this, we need movement from the other side as well—a radical liberalization of the residential construction market that will bring housing prices down. Under a Navalny presidency, getting permission for standard housing construction outside historic zones will be no harder than it is in New Zealand (which ranks first for ease of obtaining such permits). At the same time, a modest subsidy on mortgage rates will make it possible for any family with two working adults to get a mortgage at 3% annual interest.
Overall, the only thing that will help us overcome poverty and inequality is economic growth. And for that, what we need first and foremost is 1) judicial reform, 2) anti-corruption measures, and 3) very radical deregulation and de-bureaucratization. All this talk about “reducing administrative pressure on business” has been going on for 25 years, but nothing has changed. I really will remove these barriers immediately.
- Construction permits;
- Utility grid connections;
- Registration of property rights;
- Business formation.
These are measures that can be implemented quickly, and I guarantee that on these indicators we will catch up with the already mentioned New Zealand, Denmark, China, and Singapore.
I will not list our anti-corruption measures here; our proposals have long been ready, and there is not a single candidate who can offer—and then implement—a better program in this area than our team.
Of course, my platform also includes all the ideas I have promoted before: from introducing a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus to a list of idiotic laws that should be repealed.
Read https://2018.navalny.com/ and https://navalny.com/issues/.
In short, I am confident in this platform. It is the right one, it is better than what Putin and the Kremlin are offering, it will genuinely give Russia a push toward development, and its key points are supported by the majority of the population.
What matters now is getting it across to everyone, and for that I will need your help. A lot of your help.
Right now we are turning our small team into a real large-scale campaign headquarters. It will be headed by Leonid Volkov, whom everyone knows, among other things, for his excellent work as my campaign manager in 2013.
The first priority is to secure my registration as a candidate. We all understand that the Kremlin will not be thrilled by this idea.
To register, I will need 300,000 signatures, and starting today we are building a super-system in which those 300,000 people will sign up, so that when the moment comes we can formalize it legally and collect the signatures, if not instantly, then very quickly.
So the first way you can help—besides sharing this video and this post—is to go here and leave your email address. Better still, share on social media that you are ready to sign in support of my candidacy.
We are also immediately beginning to recruit 100,000 election observers, who will be needed on election day.
The strategic organizational task of this election is to punch a hole through the system of censorship and lies that Putin has built over the years. How to do that is clear: 80% of people regularly get information online. So 500,000 volunteers constantly helping spread our message on the internet, plus 200,000 volunteers working offline, will give us such reach that no federal TV channel will be able to compete with us.
There are enough people.
Our problems are old ones, and we know them well. Their names are “Why repost it? Everyone already knows” and “Why hand out leaflets? Nothing depends on me alone.” We will fight them.
The second crucial task is money. There are no campaigns without money, and when there is money—and you know we will spend it honestly—campaigns can be excellent. But here there is good news: until the election is officially announced, we can raise funds without the hellish system of collecting passport data.
So for now we are using every fundraising method allowed by law: from Yandex Money and bank cards to PayPal and Bitcoin.
The online wallets have been registered in Volkov’s name, and he will report on them regularly. Go here and donate. This is the lifeblood of the campaign. It pays for leaflets, advertising, people, and offices.
Friends!
We have an excellent team. We will have an excellent campaign headquarters. We have the best platform. I will do everything I can to be a good candidate and not let you down.
And we have the most important thing of all: the truth is on our side, and so is the country we love and do not want to surrender to plunder and endless stagnation in poverty.
Join us, and together we will make this a real election.
PS While I was writing this post, we received the first reply to the mailing:
And the first donation:
Thank you!