Alexei Navalny’s interview on the program “Speak Up” on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel)

[music]

Speak.

[music]

Good evening. This is the program

Speak. I'm your host, Yulia Taratuta. Today

my guest is Alexei Navalny, a politician,

founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and

a man who is now receiving special

attention because he has announced

his intention to run as a candidate for

president of the Russian Federation. Good

evening. Good evening, Alexei. Thank you

for coming. Thank you

for inviting me. You've already said quite a lot

since making that announcement

to various media outlets. I'll start with today's

news.

Today Bloomberg reported, uh, that

there is a discussion underway in the Kremlin about

your candidacy. And so far,

as far as I know, there have only been

a few comments, and they were

identical. Mm, the Kremlin and the government

responded by saying, mm, that they

were not responding at all. That's what Dmitry

Medvedev said, and that's what Dmitry Peskov said.

But in fact, a source in the Kremlin, to whom

we put a question

about Bloomberg, said he had been misunderstood

and that the Kremlin—and that there is no discussion.

Tell me, please, how do you view

the comments about your campaign

coming from the Kremlin and the government? This is

what interests me most. Why are you all—we're all

discussing this so much? I'm not at all

interested in discussions inside the Kremlin. I'm

not interested in what is happening in that

respect inside the Kremlin. I'm interested in what

is happening on the streets, what is happening in

people's homes. I know that real incomes

have been falling for the third year in a row. I

see monstrous corruption in the country. I

see a great many political

reasons why I should take part

in these elections. And I made the

decision to participate in them on that basis,

because I am bringing forward a platform

with which I want to change the country. And in that

sense, of course, the Kremlin has some kind of

attitude—positive, neutral,

or negative—but I don't care. Well,

you may be allowed or not allowed to take part in

the election. And that depends only on me.

It depends only on me and on those

people who support me. If

we can persuade a sufficient number of

people to support me, my candidacy—and

that is what we are doing now, this is the first

stage of our campaign—then those people

will force the Kremlin to register me for

the election. I like your idea that

you shouldn't ask those in power for

permission when you're planning to enter

politics. You just have to go. And you have also

just now, and before, said that the Kremlin

must be unable not to register you.

And what are you going to do to make that happen?

To do that, I am going to talk to

people. That's why I came on this

program. I want Dozhd viewers right now

to watch this broadcast and, among other things,

say: "Yes, actually, we want

Navalny to take part in this election.

We'll think about whether to vote for him or

not, but we will definitely sign in support

of his nomination. I want

millions of people across the country to say at

this first stage: "In any case, we

want there to be real elections,

want there to be an alternative."

We want to have a choice, we

want to see debates, we want to see

discussion, we want to see and hear

the platforms being debated." And when those

people support me, if I can persuade them,

the Kremlin will have no other choice

left.

And in your platform, which you

published in fairly brief form, and which in that

sense contains the main points, yes,

there is quite a lot to discuss and

quite a lot to criticize. But is there

a guarantee spelled out there, or stated in informal

conversations, of personal safety for

Putin and members of his family in a situation where

he agrees to a so-called

transfer of power. Well, in the event

that he has to hand over power. And what is

the logic behind that? Do you have respect for

the institution of the presidency itself?

First of all, I am very glad that my

platform is being discussed, and glad in general that

any platform at all is being discussed in this country.

Second, this is of course not

a point in my platform. I said it on the air of

Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station). Many journalists

found it interesting, and that is why it is being

discussed. Third, uh, I would actually like

people to have respect for

the institution of the presidency, because

right now it does not exist at all. This is not an institution

of the presidency; it's something else entirely. It's

one man who has been in power for 17 years.

And he wants to stay for 24 years, because there are still

7 years ahead. And he intends

to be elected again in 2018 for

another 6 years.

My attitude toward Putin, personally, including

in connection with my family, with the

pressure being put on the people

I work with, and with the fact that my brother

is in prison on a criminal case, on a fabricated

case, is of course negative, but

every normal politician, it seems to me,

must nevertheless rid himself of

personal animosity in matters like this. And

if, in reality, for the country, for a peaceful

transfer of power, guarantees need to be given

security and honor those guarantees

security, declare them in advance

these security guarantees are quite

to unpleasant people, to him and his family alone, then

that, of course, must be done. Meanwhile

you want to leave the president’s family alone,

but are ready, in fact, with the full force

of the law, to go after all the people

around him. You even named

names like Sechin and Rotenberg—that is, people

who belong to Putin’s inner circle

Putin. Do you think they are carrying out

someone else’s will? Otherwise, why

take part in elections if—why then

change anything if all these people

are simply to be let go, amnestied, and even

allowed to keep all the property

they took? After all, in our country

80% of the property in the country, by various

estimates from 75% to 88%, belongs to 0.1%

of the population. And that 0.1%—that’s all of them

right there. It’s basically a somewhat expanded

Ozero dacha cooperative (a well-known group tied to Putin’s inner circle).

If all of them are let go, it simply makes no

sense whatsoever. And guarantees

should be given to a political figure,

specifically Putin. He is a political

figure. But the Rotenbergs, Sechin, and all

the rest are just clients. It could have been

not Sechin but some Vasyachkin, not Rotenberg but

some Pechkin. None of that matters. They are

simply people he uses as

his wallets. Well, in a sense

you are ready to imprison them, the people who are

being used, but are prepared not to touch

the president, against whom you have many

complaints, but for the transition he is to you— I am not

going to imprison anyone; no one is untouchable. I

am not personally going to imprison anyone. And I

am taking part in the elections so that

the leader of the country, or even the prosecutor general,

or anyone else in the country, cannot

throw anyone in jail. Only a fair court can

send people to prison. I believe that all these

Sechins, Rotenbergs, Yakunins, and all

the rest should end up on the

defendants’ bench before a fair

court. But I repeat, Putin is a

political figure, and we want a peaceful

transfer of power. But we understand that

if tomorrow this particular person feels

that he either remains

a ruler for life, as he is now, or else

he will be killed—well, what choice will he have?

So naturally, he will want

to remain a ruler for life. I

think, in fact, this is one of the

reasons why he stays in power. But

my assumption is that

he is afraid not of the opposition, not of me or

some more radical opposition, but of

his own entourage. He can see what kind of

people they are. That the moment he loses this

chair from which he can

hand out billions, they, in the course of their

conflicts, will devour him first.

In that sense, you do not believe that Putin

can decide to leave

power? I think that is possible, but

I think he is very strongly held back by

his knowledge of his friends’ habits.

Let us imagine that in 2018

the person from the ruling camp,

the one who will run, is not

Putin, but someone to whom he hands over the

mandate.

I am ready to compete in an election against any

proxy they put forward, whether

Medvedev or someone else. It does not

make much difference, but I believe

that it is extremely unlikely. And I am sure

that at this point Putin’s strategy

is to remain a ruler for life

of Russia. Not a president, but

specifically a ruler with unlimited

powers. That is precisely why he is constantly

uh, recognized all the time

as the most influential person in the world. But in

fact, that is true. He seized power in a

huge country and is, in essence,

an absolute monarch. And what is your

main complaint about the authorities and the

president? Well, I can tell you,

share my main complaint. It

does not change. It seems to me that, uh, politics

in Russia is built on the principle of a

special operation. Someone is always being pushed somewhere,

money is being passed around, people are being put in

certain conditions, vulnerable

spots are found. And what is your complaint? Well,

I think everyone has roughly the same

complaint. Everyone would phrase it

in their own way. I would put it this way:

from my point of view, this government

despises people and does not respect them, nor

does it respect law and order. They do not care

about anything. They really do things behind the scenes,

ranging from some kind of

transfer of billions to the privatization of

Russia’s largest

oil company. They sold 19%

of Rosneft shares, and to this day the business

press is still discussing it—no one can understand

what happened. It feels as though, I

do not know, they gave each other a gift

for New Year’s, rather than selling the largest

Russian state-owned oil

company. These people consider Russia their

property, and Russian citizens they regard

simply as serfs

or peasants. That is all. That is the

complaint. You always emphasize, and in

a sense your political identity

is built, your political posture is built

on the fact that you are anti-elite. And for that

people now even like to compare you to Trump,

when they look for, uh, well, they look for some kind of—people compare you to everyone,

But with Trump in this

in a sense, well, you can be compared to him. He

built his company on the principle of

being anti-establishment, and you are saying that

the establishment, uh, should learn on its own,

uh, entirely, as I understand it. Uh,

actually, mm, I want to understand: you

say that you don’t know anyone, that you

don’t really engage with anyone.

I mean, I’m still talking about what is

called the elites, about the Kremlin, about

the government. You are saying that you

do not want to enter into contact with these

people. And in a certain sense, if

we are to believe that you have no ties to

these people whatsoever, they should be afraid of you. That

is, for them you are not some kind of compromise, not

a figure they can deal with. Take Kudrin, for example,

if he came into power or declared

political ambitions, that would be normal, but

you are, in a way, frightening. Well, Kudrin is

the власти. He was a minister for many years and still

remains a member of this very

group. As for me, they are not afraid

of me, of course. I think they additionally

dislike me precisely because

they cannot control me,

manipulate me, and because I am,

probably one of the few politicians—and

I am proud of that fact. I do not go around

asking them for anything. That whole system is

set up so that everyone who appears on the

political scene has to come and ask for

something—say, to be given

a single-member district or permission to

create a party. I have never asked them

for anything, because I believe that

Russian citizens have the right to

it. So I am not going to ask

some obscure, strange people,

who happened by chance to occupy

offices in the Kremlin, for something that

rightfully belongs to me. And there is one thing they fear:

they fear a change of power in general—

a real transfer of power. When someone comes along who

truly wants

to become president, serve his

presidential terms, and leave, and then

a new president will be elected. That

rotation itself, the idea that power

will change, that in any parliament there

will be an opposition sitting there—this is what

terrifies them. Because if it happens

that there is an opposition in parliament,

there will be parliamentary investigations, there will be

an independent press, there will be

government crises because

for example, the press uncovers some

corruption in the government, that means

they will no longer be able to make

billions of dollars. That is what they fear

and nothing else. And still, if you are completely

disinclined to compromise, to enter into

any kind of negotiations, but with

a fairly serious part that influences

That is not true. Let me answer right away: that

is not true. I negotiate with a large number of people

constantly, and in fact

in the course of my political

activity I make various

compromises, quite difficult ones, including

political ones, including

programmatic ones. I need

to unite many people. Politics is

in general an endless compromise, but

one must distinguish between compromise and submission

to unlawful rules. That is all. In other words,

going there and asking, “Guys,

may I run in the presidential election, and

will you let me appear on these

TV shows?” They will say, “No, well, okay, you

can run, but we will let you onto other

TV shows, and also we will put forward those

ones instead.” That’s what they like, like to

bring up—the Moscow election campaign,

when you were effectively allowed to run.

However you look at it, that is, you did not

ask for permission, but you were allowed

to take part.

I do not ask anyone for permission

I ask no one for permission

I formed a campaign headquarters; I ask no one

for permission, I started collecting signatures, and

I created a situation—well, not alone, of course, but together with

a large number of people; Muscovites

created a situation in which the authorities had

no choice but to—they themselves

came to me and said themselves: we

will give you the signatures of United

Russia deputies so that you can be registered. That

is how it worked. Maybe we

do not know something. I keep coming back to the elite and the

establishment. Perhaps you still,

as you say, are in contact with the elite

or feel that some part

of business, or some part of the people

who are influential and are now

close to power, might, in a situation of

uncertainty or a shift in the agenda, somehow

take your side or take the side

of change? Perhaps you are already

talking to someone about this? There is a lot

we do not know, including whether there is

life on Mars. However, we know fairly

well that within the authorities there are

groups that, of course, want change,

they are just terribly afraid. And in business

there are such groups too; these groups are everywhere.

And among city hall employees, I assure you,

the majority voted for me in the

mayoral election. Yes, we even looked at

the results in those precincts where

the residential buildings where officials live are clustered

together. I beat

Sobyanin there everywhere. Inside the system there is a huge

demand for change. I know for certain that

these people exist, but that does not mean that I

have to go around building

relationships with them. Besides, this is also

Impossible. They are afraid. As soon as this

government weakens because of me or because of

someone else, they will all come running out themselves and

they themselves will, to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,

I don’t know, cling to his calves. And he

knows that perfectly well.

If

you are not allowed to run in the election, and if

no compromises with the elite are

reached, then you are essentially saying that

you are not entering into any kind of

negotiation process at all. What

is the second scenario?

We have a revolutionary change of power. And that

depends on various things. There are

1 year and 3 months left until the election. If

the election is competitive, then one must take part in it.

If we once again see

a procedure—I do not even want to use

the word “election” right now—in which the same

same people appear again, just in profile, and not even

in profile anymore, but still full-face:

Putin, Zyuganov, Mironov,

Zhirinovsky, Yavlinsky—they have all, by the way,

already announced, except, I think,

for Mironov, that they are participating—then we cannot treat such a

procedure as

an election at all. I think that simply

quite few people would come to such an election

even without any boycott. One last

question about the establishment. You position yourself

in opposition both to the current authorities and to

people who could potentially

form your, uh, let’s say,

platform, your base. But with various

statements you alienate different groups of

people. For example, you speak rather harshly

about Yeltsin and that era.

Why are you cutting off such a significant

part of the electorate, so to speak—a part of

the creative class that remembers that

period with sympathy? Moreover,

if you remember, a large number of

successful and

well-off people came out to Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow). And in your

program, in your words, there are a great many

rather unappealing words with regard

to business, big or otherwise. Well, I

do not think I am cutting anyone off that way.

On the contrary, it seems to me that I am trying

to build a new social consensus

about that period as well. Back in those

days I was a fervent Yeltsin supporter and even,

embarrassing as it is to say now, a supporter of Chubais. But we

saw that those very people

betrayed everyone who had supported them. They

betrayed those who, in 19

98, came out into the streets by the hundreds of thousands.

This entire democratic

movement turned into the enrichment

of certain people in the government,

enrichment on a colossal scale, and

simply became a transfer of power from

Yeltsin to Putin in order simply

to guarantee money and safety for

Yeltsin’s family. Therefore, we must

assess the Yeltsin era soberly and objectively.

And the people who made their way in

that period, the people who earned

money then, I assure you, they

feel exactly the same way about it. Yes, it

was a wonderful, romantic time, but

did we get democracy as a result

of it? The answer is obvious. Did we receive

authoritarianism as our inheritance? Yes, we did.

Did we get that very same level of wealth

stratification that does not exist, well, not even in

a single Eastern European country.

Does it not seem to you that the freedoms of that time,

simply by the very fact of their existence,

already stand in opposition to the current

government and the current regime? And,

for example, that period itself and those very

freedoms of the Yeltsin era—the freedoms

of speech, movement, and so on—

in fact, right now you sound like

Culture Minister Medinsky, who

criticizes the Yeltsin Museum. And what is going on there

now? I am not criticizing the Yeltsin Museum, and

I even think that, obviously, Russia

should have a Putin museum as well. There should

be a museum for any ruler

who was in power. But one must

make distinctions. I am not criticizing that period, I am not

criticizing those wonderful people

who fought for democracy. I

am criticizing the ending. But I am living now, in 2016,

when Russia has a huge number of

political prisoners, when people are jailed for

likes on the internet, when virtually all

property belongs literally

to a tiny few, when 23 million people are

living below the poverty line. So yes,

of course, it is all very well to say: “My God,

how wonderful it was, how

free, young, and beautiful we were

in 1997

.” But I live now, in 2016, and here

everything is much worse, all hopes have been

trampled, and we are forced to build all of this

again from scratch.” You yourself have already several times

mentioned the word ‘political prisoner’ in your

program and in your remarks that

your first decree would be the release of

political prisoners. You keep bringing

this up. It is an important point. What do you

mean by the term ‘political prisoner’?

Let me clarify my question. For example,

do Ulyukayev or Nikita Belykh belong to this

group? After all, it is perfectly obvious that

this is a political signal, not imprisonment for

corruption. And there is a fairly clear

definition of political prisoners

given by Amnesty International. There are

prisoners of conscience, there are political

prisoners, but the point is that people

are subjected to criminal prosecution not

for a real crime, but for

political motives. a political motive

prevails here. Uh, answer

the second part of my question. The second

part. As for it, I don't know

the circumstances of Belykh's case, I don't know

the circumstances of Ulyukayev's case. I understand

one thing: that in Putin's system there cannot

exist an uncorrupt

minister and an uncorrupt

governor. Any person who

carries out

executive-administrative and

functions in this system can be arrested tomorrow.

Well, look, the case of

Ulyukayev is that he

quite fearlessly went to collect

cash from an oil company, as they now

say, not in order to keep it for himself

but to distribute it among his staff.

That says only one thing: that this is

standard practice. They all go around and

turn each other in in this situation on

the side of the investigators, who present us with

a certain picture, offer us

some version of events. I don't believe in any

investigation. I understand perfectly well that, uh,

with Sechin, in such situations you have

to choose a side, because you know

how—no, you don't need to choose a side. I

I wrote a special post on this topic. I

believe that Ulyukayev is, of course,

corrupt. His property, his lifestyle

and the money that he—that he

has, of course, show that he is

corrupt. Nevertheless,

he was directly arrested as a result of

some kind of, I don't know, provocation

or something else. Procedurally,

I see a large number of violations there

in procedural terms, but of course Ulyukayev

is corrupt, and our Anti-Corruption Foundation, I

as its head—does the selective nature of prosecutions

not interest you very much in that sense?

On the contrary, it does interest me, of course, as I

already said, any person—Nikita Belykh

Ulyukayev, Putin himself, Sechin, and even, I don't know,

some of the most unpleasant people to me,

Shuvalov with his dogs that he flies around

on a plane—they deserve fair

justice, they deserve that in

their case due process be observed, that

when they are arrested for some

reason or placed under house arrest,

it be properly explained what they are

being punished for. And you have a very obvious

energy of something new, a new path,

an alternative agenda. I just want

to say this on air. You are an active and

brave person, and, uh, obviously those who

think this way should a priori be on

your side. Well, simply by virtue of the fact that you are—

you. But your program—you

yourself have noticed, and are glad about it—has quite

a lot of critics, and not insignificant ones. They, uh,

say, for example, that for them you

haven't really made any effort at all, well, in

the sense that you included nothing politically

important for them in your program,

you did not include it. For example, Sergei

Aleksashenko wrote a fairly detailed

text very sympathetic to you, yes. Well,

he says, for example, that he, well, cannot

help but support decentralization and

other such things, but doesn't understand why you

say nothing about, specifically,

the difficulties involved in restoring gubernatorial

elections, well, the nuances, uh, the president's right

to dismiss governors

and appoint acting replacements in their place

from among his own bodyguards. That's from

Aleksashenko. Nothing is said about

abolishing the municipal filter (the rule requiring candidates to secure endorsements from municipal deputies). Well,

nothing that could really attract other

people to you, and not only those

who care about the 25,000-ruble subsistence minimum

(about 25,000 rubles). We'll talk about that later. I,

first of all, am very grateful to everyone

who criticizes my program. Once again I can

say that I am very happy that

this program is being discussed. As I

already said, many people have already announced

that they are taking part in the election. Which of

them has been in your studio, and with whom have you

discussed their program? With no one. They

themselves don't want that. It doesn't

interest them. Zyuganov has already announced, and

Zhirinovsky, Yavlinsky. Their programs are not

being discussed, among other things because they

themselves do not want that. Mine is being discussed. I am

very pleased. Uh, Aleksashenko's criticism

is fair. But I can say that in

those theses—the points that we

published—there is, for example, nothing about

agriculture, nothing about housing and utilities.

Let's be honest, let's honestly not play

with words. There are no—there are almost no

political theses there. And these are

fundamental political issues, because

in my theses I focused

on what I had not spoken about before. As for

the abolition of gubernatorial elections,

political reforms, and everything else,

I have been speaking about that, uh, publicly and to

a fairly large audience for the last

eight years already. So it seemed to me

pointless to repeat that in the program,

because at the first stage we

are addressing our supporters, and they are fairly

well aware of my views on

Russia's political system. I

tried to say something—to bring something new into

the discussion. You yourself

pointed out that people are discussing

the minimum wage, the tax on

oligarchs. You mentioned that, meaning, I

have a poor attitude toward rich people, although not

toward rich people, but specifically toward oligarchs.

These are the things I want to put at the center of

the focus of the discussion, rather than just once again

saying for the millionth time that yes, I support

direct elections for governors. Yes, we’ve

noticed that. Your critics have too. You and everyone

keep saying that what you’re proposing is not—

I won’t use the word populism, I’ll say

simple economic solutions, and in general that you

tend toward social measures that,

well, uh, experts call

populist. I’ll simply call it

an economically left-wing, uh, program. 25,000

as the minimum wage. And by the way,

Aleksashenko is asking you whether

civil servants’ pay should also be raised proportionally?

Well, if you’re raising it for public-sector workers? And

these are not simple economic solutions, and

this is certainly not populism. These are

sound economic decisions

that are made even in the most

thoroughly capitalist

countries. If you look at the same

minimum wage, the issue of it

was the central topic of discussion

throughout the entire election campaign. And

there, the minimum wage is set

at a fairly high level

by state law. Starting in 2018, in

New York State, you will be prohibited from

paying anyone less than $15

an hour. I also believe that in Russia

there should be a minimum wage threshold

below which people genuinely

become destitute, and the state and

society end up spending even more on them,

in fact. That is precisely

the key point. When we

pay a person 8,000 rubles,

they eat poorly, they have poor

health, they can’t get medical treatment, they become

antisocial,

it is hard for them to raise their children properly,

so overall, sooner or later, more money will have

to be spent on them than

if they were simply guaranteed a salary of 25,000

rubles. Still, all your social

innovations—redistribution of money,

doubling spending on education and

healthcare—again, your

critics calculate that you would simply

have to abolish the entire army, because they are using

the consolidated budget rather than

the federal budget. This is just a game

with numbers. Look, Yulia, this is an important

point I want to make right now.

You can’t take one part of a program and

consider it in isolation. It would be

naive to assume that I want to take

this 25,000-ruble minimum wage

and somehow force it onto the current Putin-era

economy. Of course not. What I am proposing

is a comprehensive solution. It sounds as though

you’re planning to, and that the money you’re planning

to take will come from your hated rich. Not

exactly. If you read the program carefully,

you’ll see that its main

idea is the fight against inequality. You don’t

deny that in Russia this is a huge

problem, if 88% of the wealth belongs to

0.1%. Don’t drag me into this. I’m not yet

running on that platform or standing

for president.

But the problem of inequality is enormous, so

it has to be addressed from different angles. From above,

through the super-rich and the oligarchs. These are

literally just a handful of people who should

pay a tax on wealth accumulated from raw materials.

And this needs to be understood: these are not just rich

people. No one is proposing to levy this tax on

the creators of Yandex, on people

who created something new. But if—

And how, exactly, are you going to

determine that? People are already joking about it.

Number five on the Forbes list means

you get taxed, while number eight does not

because he’s a nice, likable

guy. Why is it that in different sectors of the

economy different tax regimes can be

established? After all, people are somehow

classified. For some, VAT can be one rate,

for others there are VAT exemptions. The same

applies here. You’re speaking exclusively about

industries. Oil is included, which means the internet

is not affected.

Participation in the loans-for-shares auctions (a controversial privatization scheme in 1990s Russia) or non-participation

is important in this case. Of course

it is. And I wrote this explicitly in the

program. There were quite a few loans-for-shares auctions

—not many, in fact. I think there were 13. I

may not remember the exact number right now.

The bank is exempt; it did not participate. If you

did not participate in a loans-for-shares auction, then

you are exempt. But if, for example, that part

of Alfa Group’s business that is connected with

TNK, then of course it is subject to the same

tax on raw-materials wealth.

So yes, people who made

enormous fortunes trading in raw materials,

oil, gas, and metals should

pay. And I assure you, after that

they will still remain very wealthy

people, but they simply should not

effectively own all of Russia. So

let me finish the thought. To fight

inequality, we need both to tax the oligarchs

and raise the minimum wage,

and relieve the middle class of taxes. And

most importantly, we need economic

growth. To achieve that, my program provides for,

among other things,

a radical reduction in various

bureaucratic costs that are currently

simply suffocating business.

Among democratically minded people

there are, as I already said, people—and many

people—who could hypothetically

be capable of voting for you as an

alternative. But I have the feeling that,

despite what you say, that you

you take elections seriously, and this is not

a game, but you don’t seem to realize

that among your voters there are also

people who, uh, are guided

not only by political considerations, I mean

they vote for you not just because you are

Alexei Navalny, different, young,

active — they also want to vote for a program

and to vote seriously, not just for show.

They understand that. So how do you assess

this idea that democrats will anyway

think it over, think it over, and agree with

you because they have no other options, and

there’s no need to court them? That is precisely why

I read any criticism very carefully.

That is precisely why I am now

explaining all these points to you, as best I can,

and through you

I am explaining them to all voters and all

viewers. And I started the campaign 1 year and

3 months in advance because I understand how much

enormous work needs to be done

to persuade people. I know very well

that, well, there is no such thing as

bound voters. No one votes simply

because the Yabloko party calls on them to, or because

Yavlinsky or Navalny or

Zhirinovsky tells them to. People choose for themselves.

Today they vote for one person, tomorrow

they vote for someone completely different. So I have to

convince them, including those people

who came out, for example, to Bolotnaya (the anti-government protest rallies in Moscow).

I do not have this idea in my head

that just because they came out to Bolotnaya and

supported that movement, it means they will

automatically vote for me. I

simply know that is not the case. So who, in general,

is your voter? Where is this so-called

“Navalny belt,” if

we use American terminology,

which we have mentioned more than once today? It

will be created during the election. That

is the task of the election, because there is no

such belt yet. Let me explain. These are people

who are dissatisfied with what is happening

and understand that something

is going wrong. These are people who

are unhappy with corruption. These are people

who may even, at an earlier stage,

have viewed Putin

normally. Maybe even now they still

view him normally, but they

say: “Well, 17 years, and he wants

another six ahead of him.” That is too much. We want

a change of power. These people, simply because of the

objective system of

information distribution,

and the spread of the internet, know more about me

if they are residents of large cities, of course.

Therefore, at this first stage, my

voters are residents of large cities.

Simply because they know me. Our polling shows

that even now 55%

of the population — by various estimates,

roughly 55 percent — do not even know

who I am. Even in a negative sense

from all those programs on

NTV, they still know nothing about me. And we

have a huge amount of work ahead of us

just to tell people that such a

program exists, that such a proposal exists,

because, as I said in my

video address, there have been no real elections

since 1996. People have completely lost the habit of

the idea that there could actually be real elections

and that someone could actually take part in them

who is not controlled by

the Kremlin. That is the problem. No one

believes in it. Meanwhile, in

various interviews, in at least one of them you

said that

there is only one thing you are afraid of: that you

will become afraid.

And so you are afraid that you might

become afraid

and you do not want

to reach the point where you do. So

what could make you afraid?

That was in an interview with Venediktov.

You watched it closely. Well,

look, I’m a normal person. I’m

an ordinary person.

And of course, generally speaking, I am afraid of

many things: for my relatives, for

their health, for my children’s happiness — many

things frighten me, as they would any person.

But as I understand it, the question is ultimately

a political one, yes, and from a political

point of view, of course, I would not

want to imagine myself in a situation

where I would have to, where I would

for some reason betray my own views. So far

that situation has not arisen, and I will do everything

to make sure it does not. And I

promise voters now that I will not

let them down. I will truly

represent their interests, rather than

be guided by some hidden motive

or personal motive. Well then, don’t let them down.

Our guest was Alexei Navalny,

founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

a politician and the man who announced

that he intends to run in the

presidential election of the Russian Federation at a

time when he is facing a fairly

serious trial in Kirov Region. We do not

know how it will end. Thank you. With

you was Yulia Taratuta.