- Why’s he running for president? Why not start at the bottom? Run some city first, prove himself.
- Look at that, so eager to grab power. He should first turn around some little village, maybe a remote district, and only then run in the big elections.
You’ve heard this a million times, of course. It’s a standard Kremlin talking point explaining why the people who have been in power since 1988 should stay there indefinitely.
This rhetoric has partly been refuted by the authorities themselves: the many bodyguards who became governors have shown that it’s hard to govern any worse. They’re just average, middling governors. Only more often alcoholics, and unable to string two words together in public.
And now you can simply point to the example of Ilya Yashin and use it to slap down anyone who starts muttering that the opposition would govern worse.
Much better. Much, much better. Yashin was elected not in some little village, but in an important district in the center of the capital. He brought in a team of like-minded people. He became head of the municipal council. He is now a municipal official, goes to work, does everything the other officials from United Russia do—only much better. And on top of that, he actually communicates with residents (and enjoys broad support).
On top of that, he publishes reports for us on the work he’s done. Why? Because he knows who he depends on: not Sergey Bordyurovich, but the people. No good work and no report means no money, no volunteers, no leaflets, and ultimately no re-election.
I am 100% convinced that if you moved Yashin tomorrow into the seat of a minister, a mayor, or a president, he would perform the job vastly better than those currently sitting there. He certainly wouldn’t hide in a bunker and mumble incomprehensibly through his 28th address to the nation.
This is a very important example, and more broadly an important idea that each of us should use in our day-to-day campaigning: the opposition would govern the country far better than the current authorities. The opposition needs public support—and needs that support to grow. So it will have to try. And the moment it stops trying, a new opposition will begin pushing it aside. That is what a normal political process looks like. We stopped that process, which is why we’ve had stagnation since 2003, and since 2012—degradation and impoverishment.
In short, Yashin is doing a great job. Support his report by sharing it.