I recorded this video yesterday morning, and I needed to give some numerical forecast for the outcome of the “vote.” I didn’t bother calculating too much and named the figure that many had written about as far back as five months ago, citing the presidential administration.
It is clear to me that Putin and Pamfilova did not scrap all the rules governing election campaigns for nothing. There is a reason for it: regardless of how people vote, the result has to be a predetermined one.
As of now, it turned out not to be very accurate. I underestimated Ella Aleksandrovna.
Right now, a huge number of people are frustrated by the result. I voted “against,” everyone around me voted “against,” and yet the result is wall-to-wall “for.”
The main thing I want to say is this: this “result” should absolutely not lead to despair. Today’s vote could be an act of civic action, but it had almost no effect on the outcome.
The “results” just announced are a fake and a massive lie. They have nothing to do with the views of Russia’s citizens.
Putin lost this “vote” before it even began. He refused to hold a real referendum under proper rules and with observers. Because he understood that if there were rules and procedures, he would lose. He can only win where he gets to make up the numbers.
As for us, we can only win if we abandon naive schemes like “we’ll outsmart Pamfilova” and start working systematically. Putin and his team work very hard, very carefully, and according to a plan to strengthen their power.
I am proposing a plan. A real plan—with no fantasies. It is based on real life and on the experience of countries that defeated authoritarianism. Each of us can find our place in it.
But first, we still need to understand what happened and what consequences it will have.
What we saw was a show with a prearranged ending.
Putin decided to legalize his presidency for life. United Russia passed these amendments. But it does not look quite right when the tsar is appointed by United Russia. So Putin said: we will stage a nationwide performance, declare that more than half the people recognized this performance as a real vote and came to take part in it, and at the end the curtain will fall with the words: result 72%.
This is not an exaggeration. You see, we do have a law. It is not a very good one, and it is often violated, but it still exists. It is called “On Guarantees of Citizens’ Electoral Rights.” And it is precisely this law that guarantees that if there is an election in the country, there must be observers, there must be a ballot box of a certain type, the polling station must be set up in a certain way, and the votes must be counted in a certain way. This is how you can file a complaint, and this is the procedure by which you can go to court.
But this time it was officially stated: the law on guarantees of electoral rights does not apply to this vote.
In other words, for the sake of his enthronement, Putin abolished all our guarantees and rights and held a vote where there could be neither observation nor complaints. Where there was no need even to stuff ballots. You simply announce the result. The only thing he needed was turnout, because you cannot stage a performance in a completely empty hall.
But a fake is a fake, and I once again urge everyone to understand clearly that this vote is invalid and unlawful. The fundamental law of our country—a huge country of 150 million people—cannot be adopted by voting on tree stumps, in car trunks, in cardboard boxes, or in shopping carts from the supermarket.
Putin has humiliated everyone. We look worse than Africa. Most developing countries do not see this kind of disgrace. And we will never recognize this result.
The vote is a fake, but it has become an open declaration of what is happening in the country: Vladimir Putin, together with a group of his corrupt friends and associates, has unlawfully seized power and wants to be Russia’s ruler for life.
Even more important are the consequences, and unfortunately they are also very easy to predict, because Putin did not invent all this. Step by step, he is repeating what was done in countries whose political systems he wants to establish here. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Peru, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Burundi, and others. Several countries carried out exactly this same resetting of term limits. And they all have one thing in common: they are backward, underdeveloped countries with very poor populations. These countries are deteriorating. Wages there are tiny. People leave in search of a better life.
And there is not the slightest doubt that Putin is leading us down that path. People’s incomes have already been falling for seven straight years. Around 150,000 people already leave Russia for good every year. There is not a single example of a lifelong ruler who rigs votes and resets his term limits bringing about a rise in living standards. As long as Putin remains in power, Russia will grow poorer and decline. And every person’s life—including yours personally—will become a little worse each year than the life of someone living in a country where power changes hands through fair elections.
Putin will not leave on his own. Neither he nor his cronies will ever give up the chance to rule over millions of people and appropriate their taxes and the natural wealth of their land.
Getting rid of Putin and his United Russia is a question of each of our futures. You can study, make an effort, work hard—but half the labor of your life will simply be consumed and devalued by this inefficient, decaying, thieving regime. There are no rich countries with high wages where people vote on tree stumps and in supermarket carts. That is a law of life.
So what needs to be done, and what is the plan? It is, of course, more complicated than “let’s all just go vote against.” Because it takes reality into account—the regime’s strengths and weaknesses.
The first and main target of our efforts must be what remains of Putin’s approval rating. In his 20 years in power, he has shown his incompetence. Everything he has is built on promises and lies. About half the country already understands this. Another 30 percent are people whose heads have been filled with propaganda and lies. And around 20 percent are firm Putin supporters. They certainly do exist, but they have long since ceased to be a majority in the country.
So, all chances for change are tied first and foremost to the persuasive work each of us does. The 20 percent who are the most active and the most clear-minded must win over 20 percent of those sitting in front of the television. That will be followed by such a drop in Putin’s approval rating that his regime will not withstand it. This must be understood very clearly. The foundation of the regime is corrupt courts and police, propagandists, and election fraud—but above all, real people with brainwashed minds. They give Putin his approval rating, their votes, and, as he sees it, the right to take away our votes. Putin rules on the strength of that rating.
This is not abstract reasoning. It is a point in the plan. Every day, do something to campaign against this government. Share a video, put up a flyer, talk in the smoking area. This is the most important work. No one will do it for you.
Second. Putin has a formal mechanism through which he governs and rewrites laws to suit himself. It is called United Russia.
It controls the federal parliament, all regional parliaments, and all city councils. And yet it has long been unpopular. Everyone hates it, but it still wins. And not even so much because of falsification, but because all of us vote in different directions, while the Putin loyalists and United Russia supporters vote as one. So they always have more. Our answer is “Smart Voting”.
For now, it is the best tool we have for defeating a United Russia candidate. None of it is easy or simple, but it works, and the last elections in Moscow proved it. In two months, there will be real elections in as many as 31 regions. Sixty-six different election campaigns where Smart Voting will be used. And either we ourselves will mobilize our friends, acquaintances, relatives, and neighbors to vote no less effectively than Putin mobilizes state employees, or United Russia will win again.
At this point, someone might object and say: Alexei, you ignored and refused to recognize the nationwide vote on “resetting” the term limits, but now you are trying to convince us that elections in Novosibirsk, Cheboksary, and Tomsk matter more and that we should work our heads off for them.
Yes! Those elections are far more important. Because there is at least some procedure there. Observers. Candidates. Out of those 31 regions, there are about ten where United Russia can be completely thrown out. In other words, polling shows that if all Putin’s opponents vote according to Smart Voting, then that’s it—there will be no Putin ruling party there. And he will no longer be able to ram through a single law in those places. Of course, to preserve its majority, the authorities will unleash lawlessness everywhere worse than what happened in Moscow last summer. But this is a real fight in which a real victory is possible.
So sign up. Urge everyone to sign up and get ready to become an observer. As early as this autumn, we will need thousands of observers across the country.
And finally. The most obvious thing. The simplest thing. The most effective thing—and the one Putin fears most. The streets. Neither he, nor Mishustin, nor Medvedev, nor all these Chubaises, Rotenbergs, Serdyukovs, and Usmanovs will leave until we start taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands and the millions.
Yes, they have the police and the National Guard (Rosgvardiya). I know. For me, for several years now, a call to attend a rally has meant that I spend ten minutes at the rally and then a month in a cell. And some people are imprisoned not for a month, but for years.
But this simply needs to be understood soberly, and its inevitability accepted. Putin arrests 100 people for a month, sends 5 people to prison, but by doing so he intimidates millions. Millions lose their future because they think, “Oh, what if the police take me away?” Better they take you away than live like this for another 20 years. And they will not take everyone away. Fine, they may detain a thousand people. But if 500,000 come out, what are they going to do about it? This is the real nightmare of Putin’s ministers—that the people will finally understand that all this National Guard, these arrests and intimidation, are just a soap bubble. Until the first time a truly large number of people come out.
Back in 2012, a lot of people came out. Putin got scared, and for a while elections got a bit better. They installed video cameras. But that fear passed long ago, and they have become brazen again. Look—they are already proposing that all elections in Russia be held this way, over the course of a week and on tree stumps.
So this September, we need to go to the elections and pull everyone into Smart Voting. But if they steal the votes again, then we must go into the streets and stand there for as long as we can.
There is no doubt that, under the pretext of coronavirus, Putin will ban any mass events right through the end of the year. But here we need to act sensibly. Right now, this really is the peak of the epidemic. In July, there may be a second wave. But by September, things should ease and return to normal, and our right to gather peacefully to express our views must be restored without any conditions or restrictions.
Of course, we all want change without upheaval. We have supporters, Putin has supporters. We compete for votes; someone gets a majority, someone gets a minority. Then everyone argues in parliament and passes laws. That is how things work in normal, prosperous countries.
But here it is different. Putin relies on a minority and tells the majority: you are nobody, you have no voice, I will not allow your candidates to run. I will stay in power for life, because I have the National Guard, Solovyov, and Ella Pamfilova.
And there is only one answer to that. You know, we do not have Solovyov or Pamfilova, but we do have ourselves—several million people. And everything we have—ourselves—is exactly what we will bring out onto the streets of our cities. Then we will see what matters more.
That is it. There is no other way. We campaign. We defeat them in elections. If they do not let us into the elections or they falsify the results, then we go into the streets and achieve our goal there.
That is the plan to save Russia.