Alexei Navalny’s interview on the program “Sobchak Live” on TV Rain (Dozhd). Part 1

Sobchak Live

Good evening, this is Sobchak Live, and

today my guest is a candidate for mayor

of Moscow, Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny.

Good evening. Good evening, Ksenia.

Anatolyevna.

As I understand it, for many people, Alexei

Anatolyevich, this is now a new reality,

because many people

associate your release at the beginning

of your detention, then your release

before the verdict came into force, with a certain

new milestone for Alexei Navalny. You’ve

been told many times that

you went from being a blogger to becoming a national

politician, but now everyone

seems to agree on that. Do you yourself feel that

this point, through all these events,

has made you a national politician?

Regardless of any further events

connected with the election, I believe that

for a real politician, nothing like that exists;

there is no point through which one

suddenly becomes a national politician. Either you

are engaged in political activity

or you are not. For all these

past years, I have been building my independent

political line, bringing together people

who share my views. I

have been acting and working from the very beginning.

Even back when I wasn’t

invited onto wonderful programs like Sobchak

Live, when no one was

chasing after me many years ago, when no one

was running after me and

no one was interviewing me, I

felt myself to be just as much a politician then

as I do now. Back then I had

a system of views, I had

proposals; it’s just that now my

activity has gained support, perhaps from

a broader circle of people. But as for

me, no one can, you understand,

grant me passage, make me or not make me

a national politician — and no one can do that to anyone.

In reality, it’s only puppets

that get pulled onto television or dragged back off

it. I do what

I think is necessary; around me are my

supporters of these views. I think we’ll

talk more about that today. As for

this decision, it really was

paradoxical and caused a storm of various

opinions and emotions. Which

version do you subscribe to? I think you know all the

versions connected with your release.

Let’s list the main ones for our viewers.

The main ones. Well, the first is that Sobyanin

needed this election, needed a candidate. All these

versions from some foolish political analysts

aren’t even worth listing — it’s all

complete nonsense. I knew for certain

that there would be a long, real prison term.

And my wife said so immediately afterward.

Even three days before that, people from

Kirov wrote to me — it’s a small city, you can’t hide

things like that — that in the pretrial detention center

three cells had been renovated, and special forces had been brought into the detention center.

Special forces were brought in there, and later I

saw them myself when they brought me there. So

you knew about the sentence? I knew that the sentence

would be a real one. I knew there would be

a long term. Of course, all those

wonderful conversations about the possibility

of a suspended sentence certainly frayed the nerves,

but I understood that the decision had been made, and it

was fully carried out. When that

decision was implemented, the interests of everyone had already been taken into account there —

Sobyanin’s and not only

Sobyanin’s; God knows whose else, I don’t know.

Putin made that decision. For me,

there is no other version except that Putin

changed his decision under pressure

from those people who said that they

would come out to Manezhnaya Square (a central square in Moscow), and in the end

they did come out. They understood perfectly well, even by 3:00 p.m.,

that more than

10,000 people would take to the streets of Moscow — it would be the largest

unauthorized mass protest. And those

people, by threatening to come out and

that something might happen, forced

them to take a step back. And that is why I am very

grateful to those people. I truly believe

that it was not some

Sobyanin, Putin, and so on who got me released, but precisely those

people. Whether for long or not for long, the fact that

I am sitting in this studio right now and not in

pretrial detention center No. 1 in the city of Kirov, I owe to them.

But don’t you think that, after a year,

when the squares had seen

larger gatherings of people, it’s still unlikely

the authorities could have been frightened by the fact that

10,000 or even 20,000 people came out? That’s not even

100,000. They acted completely rationally.

What’s more, they acted within the system

in which they always act. It’s just that

those somewhat dim political analysts forgot

how events developed. People came out

to Chistye Prudy (a boulevard area in Moscow), then came the first

Bolotnaya protest (on Bolotnaya Square), and in response to that first

Bolotnaya rally, there was Putin’s response, voiced

by Medvedev, meaning: here, we’ll change everything here.

They let the tension subside,

after which they started tightening the screws on everyone there,

jailing people, and so on and so forth.

And then this is a kind of traditional Putin tactic

— a sort of aikido that he has used many times. You know,

let's take a step back now, and then

when he turns away, we'll hit him

over the head with a hammer. When there was the Manezhnaya unrest (protests/riots near Manezhnaya Square in Moscow),

connected with

the death of one of the football fans, Putin even

went to the grave, yes, surrounded by fans.

So in doing that, it seemed as though he had very seriously

damaged his political image, but then he

got revenge on those people afterward. He jailed

several of them. So they do this

all the time. I see. So you believe

that Vladimir Vladimirovich initially

made one decision and then changed his mind

after learning how many people were planning to come out

and showed flexibility in his political position, yes.

Yes. But why? He sits there and understands that

there could apparently be some

problems. Why would he need that? Better

to step back now and then somehow

catch up with them later. So you think there was no

intrigue here connected with the election, with

the idea that Sobyanin needed a real opponent

And Sobyanin did need a real opponent

up until the 18th, the 17th,

the 16th, and two weeks ago, when

the prosecutor asked for six years for me, all of this

was still in place. Nevertheless, the decision on an actual

five-year prison term had been made, and it had not

been revoked. Well, unless of course you

think that Judge Blinov independently

makes decisions like that. All right, you said

that some group of people could have

told Putin that otherwise,

if the preventive measure was not changed,

they would come out to Manezhnaya Square. What kind of

people are we talking about, roughly? I don't know what

group of people. I think that, first of all, Putin

understands such things himself, and secondly, we

understand quite clearly — or at least it seems to me

that I clearly understand where all this

comes from. You have to realize that Putin and

the people around him get their information

from exactly the same sources as we do. They

read the same Twitter, and on top of that they also look at

some so-called red folders

brought in by FSB officers, where the FSB, based on

that same Twitter and Facebook, writes

that yes, this time there really will be

the largest unauthorized protest yet.

So they monitor this closely. Alexei Anatolyevich,

you've been in politics for years now.

Still, who are these people who could have

influenced Putin in such a way that he

changed that decision? Roughly speaking,

who? Putin made the decision himself. I think he

took into account the information he was given by

certain operational services that

monitor

the possible number of people who

would come out into the streets, the mood of those people,

and their demographic profile. So when they

told him, 'You know, tonight

12,000 people will definitely come out,

people whose demographic profile is

young men under 35 years old,

with a fairly aggressive mood' — well, they came out,

and maybe they would leave, or maybe they would burn down

the State Duma building. So Putin said, well,

why the hell

do I need these problems? Better that we now

put out a statement so that by 8 p.m.

everyone would know that the sentence would be

reviewed. And by 8:00 p.m. everyone

already knew that the preventive measure would be changed.

I didn't know, because I only found out the next

morning. But everyone who came out then knew, and

for now we'll just step slightly aside,

let the raging bison run past us, and then

we'll eat that bison piece by piece. Well,

still, at 8:00 p.m., as far as even I

remember the media atmosphere around those events,

people in the

square — well, they may have been talking about it, but by around 8 p.m.

everyone already knew. I was curious myself, so I

checked later: by 8 p.m. absolutely everyone

absolutely

was reporting it — that is, the Prosecutor General's Office

the General Prosecutor's Office

had linked these two events.

All right, now regarding the election itself.

As I understand it, the appeal procedure

is 40 days, so in any

case, the maximum amount of time this

decision can be delayed is 40 days.

So accordingly,

on the 29th we will file an appeal — a short one for now.

Then, once we receive the transcript from the

hearings, we'll file a detailed one, and this can

be considered very quickly.

And there have been precedents. Remember when

Khodorkovsky was running in the

election in Moscow's University district for the

State Duma, his appeal

was reviewed instantly so that

the verdict would enter into legal force

and he would not be able to run. In any case,

by the 8th, even the longest possible deadline

— no, no, absolutely — this

can be considered over the course of

several months, or it could be

reviewed in 15 days. Your forecast: will they let you

take part in the election, so to speak? I don't have

I never try to make forecasts like that.

I don't try to predict things

that I don't control. Everything depends on

us. If we force them to let us onto the ballot,

they will. People came out and forced them to let me

out—they released me. So I'm not

going to engage in some idiotic

interpretation of who went in there,

who went to Putin, who came out from Sobyanin, and so on. It

makes no sense whatsoever. I have

my team. I have my

election campaign. I have my

political views, so if only

I had the time to

tell Muscovites together with my team

about my political views, I

will use that time. But aren't you

afraid of inadvertently

playing into Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin's hands

in the game he has chosen? Because if

he really does ensure fair

elections—and as I understand it, some steps are now being taken

to make that happen—we can't

know in advance, but there are certain

signs that the elections

really could go quite

transparently, and if he still beats you, then

he will become, essentially, the only

politician in Russia elected legitimately, without fraud

at the polls. And am I afraid

of playing into Ksenia Sobchak's hands, who, as

is well known, is a Kremlin agent planted in

the opposition, by appearing on her program? Whatever

I do, I can always end up helping someone

or not helping them.

I could be accused of legitimizing things or something else, but I

can't live in a state of some kind of

idiotic

conspiracy theory. There is political struggle,

political struggle for clear goals. I

have a system of views, and I will

use every opportunity that

I have. Of course, the elections

taking place in Moscow right now are already

completely unequal and unfair.

Candidate Prokhorov, for example, has been pushed aside, while

all day long on television they talk about Sobyanin,

what a strong

manager he is. And about me they say

that I horribly stole all the timber, and so on

and so forth. So what now? But you are still

taking part anyway. We will take part

because, as I've said many times, for me

these elections and this campaign are

about interaction not with the election

commission, but with the voters. This is not

the last election campaign, and we

understand perfectly well that this government, which

has dug itself into the Kremlin, will not change as a

result of elections like the ones

taking place now. All right, let's

imagine a situation in which, before

the eighth, the ruling comes into

legal force, and regardless of whether it is

a

suspended sentence or not, you

will not be on the ballot as a candidate. What will

you call on your voters to do? Well, for

you personally, please tell me, if

I am not on the ballot,

will that be an election or not? Well, I did invite

you for an interview, but it seems to me

that for many people, if I am not

on the ballot,

those will not be elections. For me, they will not be

elections, because they removed the main

competitor. They didn't just remove him—they removed him

using the repressive machinery, in a completely

unlawful way. My entire штаб (campaign headquarters) will turn into a

boycott headquarters. We will call on

Muscovites to boycott these elections. They

are already dishonest as it is. But then

they won't even have that sort of

ritual illusion, you know,

of some kind of fairness. All of this, this whole

smokescreen, will be completely obvious, and we will

urge people to boycott the elections, not

to go to them, and to say that

anyone who goes to vote under these conditions

is, well, an accomplice to this

violation of the law. And of course we will call on

all the other candidates to withdraw their

candidacies. Let Sobyanin win with

a turnout of, I don't know, 15%, with some of his

three sham candidates. And why do you

not consider it more advisable to,

for example, call on people to vote for

the Communist Party candidate or for Mitrokhin from

Yabloko, because I am a candidate. I

believe that, as a Muscovite, as a

citizen, I have every right

to take part in these elections. I have

fairly strong support.

Whether it is large or small, we will see.

If, if candidates are removed from the election,

they remove them because they do not want me

to take part in it. We will boycott

any election in which they do not allow

participation. Why am I asking about this?

Because when the elections to the

State Duma took place, there were two, within the opposition there were two

opposing currents. On the one hand,

there was Boris Nemtsov and his so-called

...yes, and your policy, which consisted in

that any candidate except the candidate from the authorities

the authorities. Isn't there a contradiction here? What

maybe in the mayoral election, then, too,

your position should work the same way then?

won compared with Boyko? No,

there is no contradiction. No, it's just that in every

specific situation we have to choose

the best political strategy, the one

the political strategy that will cause

the greatest problems for this government after all.

When we are dealing with parties, these are

parties, meaning a large number of people. We

were fighting United Russia then, and our

campaign, "vote for any party against

United Russia," obviously had an effect.

It did. Vote for any

...the same thing in the presidential election

didn't work anymore. The campaign "vote for

anyone against Putin" did not work

because Putin himself decided: so, with

me there will be these, I don't know, two

"Murzilkas" (token, unserious candidates) or three, or one half-Murzilka

and the rest are Murzilkas, and that no longer

worked. The same thing here: Sobyanin himself

determined the competitors in the election.

He decided which lineup of competitors to place on

the ballot, including me and my

candidacy. Therefore, if they throw it out,

the option "vote for anyone against

Sobyanin" does not work, because this

campaign benefits Sobyanin. It

raises turnout for him. Understood. As for

Mitrokhin, he has publicly more than once

accused you of the fact that part of Yabloko's

program was, let's say, copied into

your program, and in general over

the last few days we have seen a lot of criticism, even

within the Yabloko party, connected with you,

to the point that people who are members

of the Yabloko party are forbidden to somehow

express their... Yes, yesterday there was

this remarkable letter online from

an internal party mailing list, from one of

the major party functionaries. It said something like,

"Love for Navalny

membership... being infatuated with Navalny and

membership in the Yabloko party are incompatible." Well,

first of all,

it's a little strange to see that

Yabloko has now chosen as its main

target of criticism me. It seemed to me

that there are, generally speaking, other people

to criticize. That's first. Second, well, this is

politics. I'm fine with that.

Everyone competes with each other. An alliance with

Mitrokhin? What exactly do you

mean by an alliance? I have

normal relations both with Mitrokhin and with

Melnikov, and as for monitoring

the elections, as for demanding equal

opportunities for all candidates, I

work with both Mitrokhin and Melnikov,

but obviously we

are competing. The fact that I have good

relations with Mitrokhin—I appeal to

all voters, including the voters

of Mitrokhin, with a call to vote for

me. Let's move on to the program itself.

Actually, having familiarized myself with

your program, and Yabloko's, and

Sobyanin's, I still think that ordinary

viewers, ordinary voters, are unlikely

to read every word of

these programs literally, but many points even

to me seemed very similar. Sobyanin

talks about the problem of migrants, and you

also talk about it a lot. Many things

really are similar to Yabloko's program.

Could you, very concretely, so to speak, in

simple terms, explain how your program

differs from the campaign programs

of Yabloko and Sobyanin—well, for example, these

two of your competitors? Look, in simple

terms, point number one: we need to start with

what I have and what they do not have. That is

the most important thing: not the letters and numbers

written in a program, but the ability and

the desire to implement that program. My

program differs from theirs in that I will

implement it. That's first. Second, let's

take the main blocks. What

sociology and everything else show

are the main problems that

concern Muscovites: illegal

migration, transport, and housing and utilities. If we

look at Sobyanin's position on transport,

we will see that Sobyanin's program

is focused on implementing grand

infrastructure solutions that are very expensive:

big interchanges, big highways, and so

on. It is mainly aimed at

building roads, interchanges, major ones.

And yours? My program says that

these major solutions of his,

these major roads, in fact will not

solve any transport problems. There are

calculations showing that these

problems are not solved this way. My

program is about the need to develop more quickly

the capillary connections, the capillary system

of small roads, and so on. And all these

major construction projects look quite

meaningless; they do not have, uh, proper

infrastructure

urban-planning or transport justifications, and in

are mainly beneficial to contractors, that is,

Sobyanin wants to use transport funding to

feed contractors. That’s transport. Second,

when it comes to housing and utilities services, the differences here are very

serious. We are saying that it is necessary to

conduct

an audit of utility service costs. We

are saying that it is necessary to carry out

demonopolization, and so on. Sobyanin’s program

says that everything should be

rolled into enlarged tariffs, which include a

corruption component, and that this will somehow build happiness for us. As for migration,

but this is

simply ridiculous, you understand, because

Sobyanin is a representative of United Russia (the ruling political party), the very

party that has controlled both the State Duma (lower house of parliament) and

the Moscow City Duma for many years. They can pass

any laws they want. So the question arises: why

haven’t they? They have only now started fighting

illegal migration because

opinion polls show that illegal

immigration is unpopular with everyone. Why do they

not want to introduce, for example, a visa regime, and

why have they consistently, all these years,

blocked the introduction of a visa regime with

the countries of Central Asia? Sobyanin’s position

on migration is absolutely hypocritical and false

from the first word to the last. Maybe

he has started listening to the spirit of the times, but

you can look at it this way: he is now mayor, he

now has United Russia sitting in the Mos-

cow City Duma, and right now the contracting

organizations, housing maintenance offices, and so on

are the main employers of

illegal migrants. Well then, go and solve this

problem. But they need migrants because

they bus them to rallies in support of United Russia

because they take part in

election fraud, because money can be collected from these

migrants. Street cleaners

take home 18,000 rubles on paper,

and so on. But how exactly are you planning to deal with what

is connected with the visa regime? Is it really

a realistic measure? The visa regime is one of the things. We

for example, propose in our program that

contracting organizations that are connected to

budget funds, to city money, should

be disqualified if they are involved in

the use of illegal labor.

It is a very simple solution that would

work very well. Sobyanin does not do

this because he knows that if this

law were introduced, tomorrow all these

contracting organizations belonging

to the wives of district heads, and so on, all of them

would have to be disqualified because

they all profit from illegal

labor. We have to break away for literally

a few minutes. Stay with us.

Sobchak Live. We are on the air live and will continue

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