(this is NOT an April Fools' joke) My dear friends, those of you who are interested in politics (and that's 99% of you). I have a big favor to ask. Today, our article was published in the newspaper Vedomosti (I co-authored it with M. Gaidar)({{URL_1}}).
Opposition: We'll Hold the Elections Ourselves Asked how many votes Russian democrats would receive if elections were conducted fairly, Boris Nemtsov recently replied: “Each of us has a 1% rating. Ryzhkov has 1%, Kasyanov has 1%, and I have 1%. If we unite, we'll get 3%.” Read more This article in blogs[?]
wawa-umka You could say this is a programmatic article. It is devoted to the need to use preliminary elections (primaries) as a tool for internal competition, renewal, and, ultimately, the unification of the opposition. Exactly that: unification through honest public contest, not through attempts at backroom deals. People have been talking for a long time about the need to hold primaries. Now the time has come to make some real efforts in this direction. I want to stress that at this point we are not talking about a specific mechanism. It should be worked out by an organizing committee with input from potential participants. The only thing I can say is that I believe these should be open primaries—open to all citizens of the Russian Federation, not just activists from political movements. So here is my request: at this first stage, any comments and suggestions are very important, including critical ones. So please read the article and share what you think about it. Either here, or in the comments on m**_gaidar's page,** or on your own blog (in that case, send links). Naturally, any effort to spread information about this initiative is very much welcome. Thank you.