People often ask me now about our “plans for after March 18,” and in particular about registering our party.
Let me answer very directly: yes, we have begun another round of registering the Progress Party.
Over the past year, together we have created the largest genuine political movement in modern Russian history, with an extensive regional network. We will use this movement to fight for a normal future for our country and against the corruption, compounded by idiocy, that has become the foundation of state governance.
This movement is, of course, much broader than the confines of a party. We understand that the party format of political struggle does not seem comfortable or effective to everyone.
Nevertheless, a huge number of people need a party. They need a mechanism for participating in elections—regional elections first and foremost.
Even now, our party would easily win seats in any regional legislative assembly. That is precisely why it has been kept from registration for so long.
We have already made six attempts.
First the People’s Alliance, and then the Progress Party, we have been trying to register since 2012, holding six party congresses for that purpose. Registration was denied on laughable grounds, such as “the absence of a space at the beginning of a line in the registration application.”
On September 27, 2014, the Progress Party registered the required number of regional branches: 43 regional branches.
And we were close to obtaining the formal right to participate in elections. But the Kremlin, after thinking it over, decided it was too scary.
Then, in 2015, the Ministry of Justice dissolved the party, in direct violation of the law, since it had no right to liquidate a party that fully complied with legal requirements. By 2016, we had gone through all the necessary court instances, and the case is now before the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights).
But the ECHR is one thing; what we definitely do have is a party made up of real people united by shared ideas. And it is the largest. I think our nomination procedure leaves no doubt about that.
Right now, we are assembling an organizing committee and will notify the Ministry of Justice that the party registration process is beginning. The regions will hold meetings and nominate delegates to the congress, which we will hold on March 3. And by June, we expect the party to register its regional branches and be able to participate in elections.
At the very least, that is our plan—one based on the law.