If there are any upsides to being in prison, one of them is that many decisions are easier to make here.
You are cut off from the heated debates. News about who argued with whom, and over what, reaches you a week later. But in return, you get to see all the positions and arguments at once. And you judge them not by who had the slicker comeback or the funnier joke, but by how convincing their arguments are.
That is why I can look at the election debate now raging so fiercely (including because of my rather sharp post) from a certain distance. And I notice something surprising in it. People are furiously arguing over which election strategy is better, yet no one has a clearly formulated position that can be turned into a message people can actually act on.
What is a clear position? A warrant officer takes me out of my cell and asks: “So what are we supposed to do in this election?”
And you give him a brief answer.
Answers like “put pressure on the authorities,” “fight Putin,” or “vote against Putin” will mean nothing to him.
He is an ordinary, normal person, and he is asking a question that allows for only two kinds of answers:
1) Don’t go; 2) Go vote for so-and-so;
Can you give the warrant officer a clear answer? You can’t, because so far the only thing you know for certain is that Putin will be on the ballot. But you are not going to advise anyone to vote for him. Everyone—including me—needs more information.
So my answer to the warrant officer is: “It’s too early. It’ll be clear in early January.”
Look. The 2024 presidential election will take place on March 17. It will likely be officially called around December 15. Over the following month, it will become clear who is taking part.
There are only three possible scenarios for voters:
Thinking about it soberly and calmly, I understand that any of them is possible.
For example, the election could follow the pattern of the recent Moscow mayoral election.
That is, there will be Putin and three or four vague, indistinguishable candidates. In that case, the most logical thing would be to vote for any one of the vague candidates. Against Putin, and in favor of forcing a runoff.
Nor can we rule out something completely absurd. For example, the ballot might contain only Putin and Kadyrov. There you go—choose.
In that case, personally, I would not be able to regard it as an election at all. And I would call for a boycott. And that is not an impossible scenario. It was no accident that Kadyrov recently suggested leaving Putin as the only candidate. Maybe it was his own idea—or maybe he was asked to say it.
The most pleasant—though unlikely, yet theoretically possible—scenario is that someone decent ends up on the ballot.
For example—and I’m just imagining here—Roizman. He is in Russia and, thankfully, not in prison. In that case, I would urge people to vote for him.
To turn this argument about the election from a chaos of accusations into something useful, I put together a 10-question survey.
Of course, a 20-question survey would be more precise, and there is no doubt that a better survey than mine could be made. Some of the questions are intentionally a bit pointed or framed hypothetically. It is not a perfect survey, but it is short, and for example, if I look at any politician’s answers, I will understand very clearly what their election plan is and what can—or cannot—be expected from them.
When the people in this argument fill it out (the site opens via VPN), everyone will understand what their real position actually is, once all the verbal nonsense is stripped away. You will be able to see what should—or should not—be expected from specific politicians. I also added a couple of questions about campaign tactics, because passions will soon flare up around that too.
Most importantly: to ensure objectivity, I am asking Tikhon Dzyadko (TV Rain / Dozhd) and Galina Timchenko (Meduza) for help. Specifically, to interview the key participants in this argument, as well as several people whose opinions, experience shows, will influence many others.
But it would be very useful if as many people as possible answered the survey questions and published their responses. And in any case, I would advise everyone simply to answer the questions for themselves and put their own thoughts in order.
I am also making a request to two respected people: Sergei Guriev and Michael Nacke. They are independent, understand politics extremely well, and know all the participants in this dispute. I will ask them to review the surveys and group them so it becomes clear who can work with whom, without wasting time on pointless arguments. And if they identify such a group—or groups—to help them coordinate.
With only these goals:
a) to inform one another of their immediate plans regarding the election;
b) to say what media resources he or she is prepared to devote to the campaign;
c) to say how much funding he or she can allocate to it or plans to raise.
This will make it possible to assess how serious their intentions are, and since there is nothing secret here, this purely businesslike record should be published so that you can read it too. And after that, people can decide based on whether the meeting turned into a hell of scandal and self-promotion, or whether it produced something worthwhile.
There are political players and participants in the dispute. There are people whose opinions we know traditionally influence elections. There are simply smart people and experts, and finally—and very importantly—people with informational influence, or in plain terms, YouTube “stars” from its social and political segment. All these people are very different, and I relate to them differently, but I consider their views on the election important, and you and I need to know them in order to plan strategies and next steps. I have surely forgotten someone, but here is my list (in alphabetical order):
Boris Akunin, Sergei Aleksashenko, Yevgenia Albats, Roman Anin, Roman Badanin, Dmitry Bykov, Ilya Varlamov, Leonid Volkov, Abbas Gallyamov, Vladimir Gelman, Grigory Golosov, Dmitry Gudkov, Gennady Gudkov, Sergei Guriev, Tikhon Dzyadko, Filipp Dzyadko, Ivan Zhdanov, Boris Zimin, Mikhail Zygar, Oleg Itskhoki, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Maxim Katz, Ilya Krasilshchik, Fyodor Krasheninnikov, Alexander Kynev, Tatyana Lazareva, Yulia Latynina, Ruslan Leviev, Mikhail Lobanov, Vladimir Milov, Maxim Mironov, Dmitry Muratov, Michael Nacke, Alexander Nevzorov, Vladimir Osechkin, Sergei Parkhomenko, Maria Pevchikh, Andrei Pivovarov, Alexander Plyushchev, Danila Poperechny, Maxim Reznik, Yevgeny Roizman, Sergei Smirnov, Lyubov Sobol, Valery Solovey, Konstantin Sonin, Yevgeny Stupin, Mark Feygin, Tatyana Felgengauer, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Lilia Chanysheva, Yevgeny Chichvarkin, Mikhail Shats, Viktor Shenderovich, Ekaterina Shulman, Tamara Eidelman, Grigory Yudin, Ilya Yashin.
Clearly, not all of them will take part in a campaign even if their interests align; in practice, it will be politicians who need to be brought together. But personally, it is important for me to understand the views of at least these people.
I filled out this survey myself as well. Here is what I got:
1. Are the elections something significant to you?
— Yes;
1.1) Do you plan to urge others to take any actions in connection with the election?
— Yes
2. Do you have a clear strategy?
— No;
2.1) What is the latest date by which you will announce your strategy?
— January 15, 2024;
3. Do you consider a boycott possible under certain circumstances?
— Yes;
4. Do you consider a strategy of voting for any candidate against Putin acceptable?
— Yes;
5. Do you consider it possible that the election could produce a single opposition candidate, with all political campaigning directed in that candidate’s favor?
— Yes;
6. Could Zyuganov, Slutsky, Nechayev, Sobchak, Venediktov, Yavlinsky, Muratov, or Roizman serve as the single opposition candidate?
Muratov and Roizman — yes; Venediktov, Zyuganov, Nechayev, Slutsky, Sobchak, and Yavlinsky — no;
7. In the 2018 election, did you: vote / not vote / prefer not to answer?
— Did not vote;
8. Is online activity alone enough to run a campaign for the 2024 election?
— No;
9. Is it acceptable, as part of the campaign, to pay bloggers/influencers for political advertising?
— No;
10. Are you prepared to fully use your YouTube channel for election campaigning?
— Yes;
10.1) How many unique viewers does your channel have per month?
— More than one million.
Join in! https://10.navalny.com/