Well, friends, we’ve got our first #success.
We’ve successfully cleared the 300,000-signature mark, and the total now stands at 335,782.
A reminder: under Russian law, to register as a candidate for president of the Russian Federation, an applicant must submit exactly 300,000 signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC).
And this has to be done in a very short time frame—40 days, including all the technical paperwork. And during the “dead season,” no less—the collection period falls over the New Year holidays. And the signatures must be gathered in at least 40 regions of the country.
So in practice, this is yet another barrier designed to keep people out of the election.
For the candidates the Kremlin wants to see on the ballot, they’d accept even shredded paper as signatures—we’ve seen that more than once. Ours, meanwhile, will be examined under a microscope.
We understand that perfectly well, which is why we’re preparing in advance. In almost every post and video, I urge you to sign in support of me so that, when the crucial moment comes, we’ll be able to gather the required number quickly and properly—so everything is beyond reproach.
That’s why we’re collecting more than just email addresses (we already have over half a million emails from people supporting the nomination). Every signature we’re collecting now includes: - an email address; - a phone number; - a confirmation SMS; - a short questionnaire.
In other words, our signature drive is not just another online petition with electronic signatures—it’s real, difficult work aimed at solving a very complicated problem.
My thanks to everyone who has shared their information with us.
But now we have 335,782 signatures. Should we stop?
No. Collecting signatures remains extremely important for a number of reasons. We’ve decided to aim for one million.
It’s one of the best forms of campaign outreach.
The signature drive also brings us volunteers. We have 80,698 of them now, by the way.
No more than 7,500 signatures from any one region can be submitted to the CEC, so it’s important for us to broaden our geographic spread in order to reduce the risk of signatures being rejected in any particular region.
We are entering this election with genuine, broad support. Every point in our platform is backed by a majority of the population. We need to show that to the authorities and remind ourselves of it as well. Let there be such a large number of people formally signing for us that it simply cannot be ignored.
One million is a beautiful number.
Why am I writing all this? Because as part of our drive to collect one million signatures, we’re launching our first campaign: +1.
If you’ve already signed (good job!), bring us one more person.
A friend, an acquaintance, a relative.
Let’s face the truth: we’re simply too lazy to sign.
That’s the main obstacle to just about everything. Right now, any video on our channel gets watched by more than a million people. And yes, lots of people are signing. But if people put aside their laziness for just two days, we’d collect the million we need almost instantly.
There are plenty of people around you willing to support an independent opposition candidate—even if only for the sake of real competition in the election.
Let’s be honest: our own polling shows that even pro-Putin voters support competition and want to see independent candidates on the ballot.
- Voting? I’ll think about it, but I’ll sign to get him nominated. That’s a typical reaction.
Help us. Please spend 10–15 minutes of your time and persuade someone to sign. Send a few people a message like this: Hi. I signed in support of Navalny’s nomination as a candidate. Could you sign too? It would be the right thing to do. Here’s the link where you can do it: https://2018.navalny.com/
You can do the same thing on any social network. Experience shows that someone will definitely sign.
The 335,782 people who have already signed are a formidable force. And if we have that force, then let’s use it for peaceful and useful purposes.
Bring one more person here.
+1
That’s how we’ll win.
Update:
Because of peak traffic on the website, there may be disruptions with SMS messages. We apologize.