Yesterday, a new campaign video about the elections to the Coordinating Council came out:
http://youtu.be/JmUmrseNcpM I think it turned out great. It’s quite motivating when it comes to registering to take part in the elections. Please help spread it around. It matters. The video is one thing, but real life explains much better why we must choose the opposition ourselves, rather than support its self-appointment. Just look at what is happening in local elections, and no further explanation is needed. The YABLOKO party has nominated Andrei Ponomaryov, the leader of its regional branch, as its candidate for governor of Bryansk Region. Everyone is celebrating: at last, the opposition will fight for the governorship.
But as soon as the local crook—Governor Denin—ran into trouble and his registration was suspended, this supposedly strong opposition candidate withdrew from the race (along with an equally prostituted candidate from the LDPR), in order to guarantee the election would collapse if the United Russia candidate was not reinstated. In other words, he is not fighting to win; he is acting as a technical candidate working in support of United Russia. And it turns out he is not alone: the entire Bryansk branch of YABLOKO is involved in this disgraceful scheme ("This was not my personal decision. It was the decision of the bureau of the Bryansk branch of Yabloko, and I am obeying it," Mr. Ponomaryov said). Yes, YABLOKO’s federal leadership behaved entirely properly and with dignity, saying that because of this it would expel those responsible and dissolve the regional branch. But that does not make things any easier for us. So here is the question: could it really have happened that an outright fake, prostitute-candidate could run in the name of the “opposition” if the decision to nominate him had been made not by three people in Moscow, but by at least several thousand people? Residents of Bryansk who understand what is what, and can tell who in Bryansk has any right to call themselves “the opposition,” and who is just trying to grab a little money. Of course not. Nor would he ever have become the leader of the party’s regional branch, and such a disgraceful political council would never have been elected, if it had really been chosen by people—the party’s supporters—rather than appointed by a little clique of party bureaucrats. Khimki. There was this “independent candidate Belousov,” about whom people shouted that he was a real opposition figure (also a former Yabloko member) and would provide an alternative to Chirikova. He was endorsed with great pomp by Mikhail Prokhorov: "We—I mean both myself personally and my like-minded colleagues in Civic Platform—have decided whom we will support in the Khimki mayoral election. ... Every candidate for mayor should understand this bond, which grows stronger with each passing year. But the candidate we have decided to support has another, in our view, ‘ironclad’ advantage. He is non-partisan and the least politicized of all the contenders. I** am convinced that in doing his job, this person will look neither to the authorities nor to the opposition. He will not care what people in the Kremlin or on Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square, a symbol of the protest movement) think of him. What matters most to Igor Belousov is what the residents of Khimki—people unconcerned with political intrigue—say about his work. That is why Civic Platform will support Igor Belousov in the mayoral election—a non-partisan professional who knows exactly what he is doing". Even then, all that nonsense about an “independent professional” looked like nothing more than an attempt to siphon votes away from Chirikova. And then, a couple of days ago, it became absolutely clear that this “independent professional Belousov who knows exactly what he is doing” did indeed withdraw from the race in favor of the United Russia candidate. Yes, yes, now Mikhail Prokhorov has admitted his mistake, called Belousov a political prostitute, and declared his support for Chirikova. But think how much effort Chirikova’s campaign had to spend explaining the obvious: Belousov was a planted United Russia crook. The question is: could a swindler like Belousov have received a nomination and any support while claiming to represent the “opposition” if such a nomination had depended on a preliminary vote—one broader than five people in Prokhorov’s headquarters? Of course not. The time has come to tell ourselves plainly: all of us, and no one else, must take part in making the most important decisions concerning our common struggle against the occupation regime of the Party of Crooks and Thieves. The question of nominating candidates for elections is not a matter of “a quick whisper and suddenly a nomination,” but a matter of open discussion, preliminary competition, and nominating the person who wins that competition. The power of the Crooks and Thieves fears elections and competition, while for us they are our best friends and the thing that will bring us victory. ** Only when everyone claiming to seek “nomination from the opposition” has gone through competitive procedures, through debates like the ones we are now having in the Coordinating Council elections—sometimes quite tough—only then will we get the long-desired “improvement in the quality of the human material.” Competition of ideas, competition of programs, public debates, and then direct universal voting by supporters—that is what we need. That will give us candidates who can persuade people, lead them, and win elections. The Coordinating Council of the opposition will be formed in exactly this way. And it is not the council members who need to be elected. I*t is all of us who need to elect the people we want. The people who represent us. That is why the slogan of our video is “Reclaim your vote.” If the Kremlin crooks spit on our vote, then at least let us value it ourselves. Let us use our votes to choose. * Register and vote. There are 8 days left until registration closes.