Well, autumn has arrived, so it’s time to sum up the discussion on the topic of “the strategy ordinary people should follow in the upcoming elections.”
First of all, I would recommend reading the following interesting texts on the subject: A Final Word on the Elections by Stas Belkovsky, who argues in favor of a boycott A Saga of the Elections by Garry Kasparov, who supports a “conscious boycott” and considers my “vote for any party against United Russia” line to be “Prokhorovism,” aimed at supporting Right Cause Polemic Within the Opposition by Boris Nemtsov, organizer of the “Nakh-Nakh” movement, which plans to spoil ballots Nakh-Nakhism as a United Russia Supporter’s Dream by political analyst Alexander Kynev, who argues with Nemtsov What to Do About the Elections by Eduard Limonov, who proposes demanding removal from the voter rolls. Reading these texts will give you a full picture of the arguments made by supporters of every position.
What do we have: Boycott the elections. Don’t show up, don’t vote Show up to vote and spoil your ballot Go to the election commission before the election and demand that your name be removed from the voter rolls Show up to vote and cast your ballot for any party against “United Russia.” Let me state my position on each of the proposed options. Briefly, so as not to drag this out or repeat what has already been said many times. 1. Boycott. This is a reasonable and logical position. I myself called for a boycott in the last election. Unfortunately, we have to admit that the idea does not work and makes no sense from the standpoint of political struggle. Mass campaigning for a boycott is impossible—both “United Russia” and all the other parties oppose the “boycotters.” The main problem with campaigning for a boycott is that it contains no mobilizing principle: Stay home, watch TV, be outraged. But that’s what we already do all day anyway—sit at home, watch TV, and get outraged. A boycott will not seriously reduce turnout. It only helps “United Russia.” And let’s not forget that it has been mathematically proven: if you don’t vote, the Caucasus votes in your place (a reference to heavily managed voting patterns in Russia’s North Caucasus regions). 2. Spoiling ballots. Nakh-Nakh. There is neither logic nor sense here. If you do not recognize the elections, why go to them at all? And if you do go, why spoil the ballot? The math here is extremely simple: (a) 100 people come to vote. 80 vote for UR, 20 vote for X. In the Duma, UR gets 80% of the seats, and X gets 20%. (b) 100 people come to vote. 80 vote for UR, 20 spoil their ballots. In the Duma, UR gets 100% of the seats. So why do this? A spoiled ballot is not counted when seats are allocated, but it does increase turnout. The claim that “all parties participating in the election are branches of United Russia” is an obvious exaggeration. No one disputes that the parties are controlled, but no one will convince me that Zyuganov, Mironov, or Mitrokhin are literally no different from Gryzlov. Today they are controlled, tomorrow they may not be. Our task is to help them break free of that control. I don’t even see the point of seriously arguing with the Nakh-Nakh people, for one simple reason. We’ve seen all this before: in the last election, “The Other Russia” called on people to spoil their ballots (by writing “The Other Russia” on them or in some other way). Back then, “The Other Russia” was a fairly substantial force and spun tales about millions ready to spoil their ballots, about how those millions would photograph everything and upload it to special websites. It all ended in nothing. Show me a website with even 200 such photos. This time it will be even weaker, because, with all due respect to “Nakh-Nakh,” they look feeble compared with “The Other Russia” as it was in 2007. 3. Removal from the voter rolls. If we speak theoretically, this makes sense. But if we look at the practical side of the issue, it will never become a mass campaign. No one will want to go through some obscure procedure to be removed from the rolls; they’d rather just stay home. And suppose tomorrow we get what we want and free elections are announced? Are we then going to start collecting paperwork to get ourselves added back to the rolls? The interesting discussion that has taken place has finally convinced me that the strategy “Show up to vote and cast your ballot for any party against United Russia” is the right one. it is realistic; hundreds of thousands of activists from other parties will support it; it is unifying—everyone against “United Russia”; the majority of the “non-systemic” opposition already supports it. I would draw your attention to Denis Bilunov’s post, where he presents the results of a poll of people who signed the appeal “Putin Must Go”:
it will have a natural continuation after the election as well; it is completely legal and, at the same time, genuinely aimed at changing the political system; it creates real problems for the authorities; it is based on the truthful, obvious, and intuitively clear idea: “vote against the United Russia crowd—the crooks and thieves,” and therefore requires no explanation. I’ll set out my view of the practical steps a bit later, but for now I want to introduce the “Rosagit” project, created by some excellent volunteer activists. It contains high-resolution images from the “Party of Crooks and Thieves” poster contest and will serve as a hub for all kinds of creative material on this theme, so people won’t have to search all over the internet for it: everything from posters to car stickers.
http://rosagit.wordpress.com/ http://rosagit.blogspot.com/ http://rosagit.livejournal.com/ (several mirrors in case of attacks) If you have created or found something good on this subject, send it to rosagit @ hotmail com please take part in the poll: [Error: Invalid poll ID 1775126]Open to: all, results viewable to: allIn the upcoming Russian State Duma elections, I will <input ... >boycott them <input ... >go to the polling station and spoil my ballot <input ... >demand that I be removed from the voter rolls <input ... >vote for another party, against “United Russia” <input ... >