And more than that—it’s necessary. We shouldn’t expect a fair election. There definitely won’t be equal access to the media. But there definitely will be competition, and an excellent candidate who calls things by their proper names.
The head of our campaign office, Alexei Vorsin, has just been registered as a candidate for mayor of the city.
If you live in Khabarovsk or nearby, be sure to come to Alexei’s campaign office and take part in the campaign. Your help is very much needed. All the information is here: http://vorsin.info/
The Khabarovsk campaign is very important and has nationwide significance:
Khabarovsk is one of the very few major cities—fewer than ten—where direct mayoral elections still exist. Everywhere else, mayors are simply appointed by United Russia (the Kremlin-aligned ruling party), but here citizens’ voices can still be heard.
Amid this whole mess with raising the retirement age, voting for Vorsin—a grassroots politician with no ties to the “systemic parties” or to this whole disgusting nomenklatura (Soviet-style political-bureaucratic elite)—is a great opportunity for people to express their distrust of the entire ruling establishment, from Putin and Medvedev down to the local authorities.
And for our campaign office, this was a very important test of how effective the signature-collection system we built really is. We passed the test with flying colors, which is very encouraging.
So, let’s help Alexei Vorsin—he’s our shared candidate.