A fragment from the documentary project Srok from August 2012, in which Alexei explains in detail to his associates his idea of holding elections to the Opposition Coordinating Council. Against the backdrop of the mass protests on Bolotnaya Square and Sakharov Avenue in Moscow, a crisis of representation emerged, and Alexei proposed resolving it through fair online voting—a sharp contrast to the “legitimacy” of Putin-appointed officials like Sobyanin. Although the council itself did not last long, this attempt to unite different political forces through democratic procedures remained a unique experience for the Russian opposition.
Text version
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So, tell me, do you want to hear
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about the primaries?
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You clearly don't want to hear about it. So, what do you,
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Andrei, know about the primaries?
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Uh-huh,
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about the primaries.
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Well, I know they were specially invented
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so that you would come out looking great. So that I
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would. No, that's not right.
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That's exactly what I'm about to explain.
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Take your seats.
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Damn, what is this?
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Because I warned you.
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Do we have some thingamajig that...
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ah, go ahead.
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Veduta wrecked the primaries.
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Did Veduta write that?
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Of course—who else could have written it, damn it,
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with a permanent marker. The main
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political trend that we
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are seeing. We are seeing a trend: people
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are ready to come out. There are hundreds of thousands of people
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in Moscow, and certainly tens of thousands
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in Moscow and in other regions, who
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are ready to take part in protest actions
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because they understand that these protests
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are necessary, because they are right, they
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are happening because their
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rights are being violated. But they really do not like what
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is happening on the stage. They are completely dissatisfied
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with these so-called leaders, or
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with the absence of leaders, or simply
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with random people climbing onto the stage,
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claiming to be leaders.
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What can be the answer to this
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crisis of legitimacy, this crisis
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of leadership? Primaries.
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Well done, Konstantin Kalmykov.
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Ah, you'll get automatic credit. Correct.
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The legitimacy problem of our opposition
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must be resolved through an electoral procedure.
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If we accuse the authorities of being
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illegitimate, if we say, "Putin, who are
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you? Nobody elected you. You were
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elected by Churov (the former head of Russia's Central Election Commission)." We say, "Medvedev,
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nobody elected you. You were chosen,
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appointed prime minister by Putin." Who
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elected Sobyanin? How many voters does
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Sobyanin have? One. What is the body
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that grants a mandate for
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being in the opposition? The Communists,
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A Just Russia,
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our current organizing committee, or who? Right now there is no
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such body at all. Therefore, all we
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can do is for this
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organizing committee of ours, which has been doing all this,
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to make a decision to hold
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elections. We are electing a total of 45
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people, of whom 30 will be elected from
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the so-called nationwide list.
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And another 15—five people each—
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will be elected from the nationalists,
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the liberals
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and the left. We will elect them. And if necessary, we will re-elect them.
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And if there is some kind of
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failure, we'll say it's their fault.
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And if something goes well, then they
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deserve the credit. Yana, go ahead.
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Who is developing the procedure for electing
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this organizing committee? Also, will this
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procedure be formally regulated in some way? Is there
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some document that
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governs it? Because if all this,
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if there is some procedure, then it
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also has to be legitimate.
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Somebody make a note that Yana does not
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read my LiveJournal. The general framework is
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that there will be verified voting,
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one person, one vote, which will be
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held online, direct, and in which
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every person will be able to take part,
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every citizen of the Russian
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Federation who is 18 or older. What we need
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at last is some kind of
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competition within the opposition. It has all
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become demoralized and decayed, partly
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because it has not taken part for a long time
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in competitive processes. But here,
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finally, you have to demonstrate yourself, you have to
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fight your way through, you have to
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show your leadership
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qualities, you have to run an election
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campaign, find some money,
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persuade some people to
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support you, and so on and so forth.
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If you are not capable of doing all that,
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then you have no business being among those 45 and
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no business pushing your way into organizing committees. So, you are
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an informal—well, fine—the creator of
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RosVybory, RosYama, RosPil, and so
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on. That means you have people who
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follow you on Twitter—200, I don't
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remember, 300 thousand—on LiveJournal and so on. So
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even if they were reading you
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just out of curiosity, after this
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video they already...
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Brilliant. That is exactly why you are saying
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to me exactly the same thing that the
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leftists, liberals, and nationalists told me. They
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said, "Give us a quota, because you're
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already a popular guy anyway." They said, "Well,
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come on, give some to political
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activists who don't have a head start, who aren't
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well-known popular bloggers." We do not
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need a party. What we need is a council,
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one that has the legitimacy to
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make the important decisions that we
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need, as I already said: when
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to hold rallies, which candidates
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to support, how we do or do not relate
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to particular positions. What irritates me
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right now is that there are people sitting there
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whom nobody elected. I want
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to sit in a legitimate body so that not
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a single soul can say to me, "Who
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are you? Nobody here
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elected you at all." But I will be elected. That's all.
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the rest will be elected.
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If I am elected.