I stopped closely following officials’ purchases of expensive cars a long time ago.
And what is there to keep watching? We drafted the bill. We collected 100,000 verified signatures. Public opinion is entirely on our side. One hundred percent of citizens support our initiative: officials and employees of state-owned companies should not be allowed to buy cars costing more than 1.5 million rubles.
But this initiative was killed off clearly and unequivocally. It’s obvious: Putin himself is against it. It matters to him that officials should look visibly different from the rest of us and stand apart in status. They have to have huge, shiny black cars. The face of power on the roads. No Toyota Camrys will do for them.
But when I saw this procurement, I couldn’t hold back and went off to record a video right away.
Especially since this is Tambov Region, which makes me want to say a lot.
This is no longer just the purchase of an expensive car; it’s mockery of a particularly cynical kind. These guys are buying a Mercedes for 12 million rubles, specifically using money from the electricity payments made by the region’s residents. In this case, everything is completely clear: it’s a state-owned electricity retail company. It sets the tariff. And it builds a 12-million-ruble car into that tariff.
It seems to me that this is a good, concrete example of how candidate Navalny differs from candidate Putin. Everything here is very clear, and even legally formalized: I write bills that would make purchases like this illegal. Putin blocks them.
Choose whose side you are on.