Photo: Anton Belitsky The feedback on our campaign platform has been positive, which makes me very happy. More generally, I’m glad that people are actually reading it, because usually hardly anyone does. I’ve watched election campaigns a hundred times, heard a hundred times that “his platform is bad/good,” but very rarely have I met people who had actually read one.
Photo: Anton Belitsky Here you can watch the actual presentation of the platform itself (20 minutes), and then tell everyone, “I’ve read it.”
http://youtu.be/1uwMGS_pczk Some media reactions: For**bes: "**An Ordinary Muscovite" The opposition politician held the presentation of his platform in a hotel conference hall on Olympiysky Prospekt. The event drew several hundred guests—Navalny’s supporters and journalists. By the start of the campaign, the founder of RosPil had come fully prepared: campaign materials in a unified visual style, more than a thousand volunteers recruited in recent weeks, and finally, a full-fledged socioeconomic platform. Even before the presentation, it became known that former New Economic School rector Sergei Guriev and his wife, the well-known economist Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, had taken part in drafting the document. Guriev, who left Russia after a series of searches and interrogations connected with the “expert review” episode of the Yukos case, recorded a video address for the audience. The former head of the New Economic School called Navalny’s mayoral bid the first successful attempt in modern Russian history to involve civil society in the political process, and praised the opposition politician’s active work with volunteers. The presentation itself had an informal format. Navalny’s campaign manager, Yekaterinburg city council deputy Leonid Volkov, invited the candidate’s team onto the stage, the core of which consisted of staff from RosPil and the politician’s other civic projects. The politician himself took the podium last, together with his wife Yulia. He presented the platform through specific stories from members of his team: some had run into problems with lines at clinics and kindergartens, others had encountered police abuse or illegal migrants, and so on. Report** by TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel): **Instead of a formal presentation, Navalny simply told stories about his colleagues from the campaign team. Each of them is responsible for one issue: traffic jams, illegal migration, corruption. The future mayoral candidate—likely mayoral candidate—presented each point of the platform through a member of his team. http://tvrain.ru/articles/referendumy_na_mestnom_urovne_borba_s_korruptsiej_i_vybor_mirovyh_sudej_navalnyj_predstavil_svoju_programmu-346977/ MK: "Navalny presented his platform in a Western style" The first thing that stood out at Monday’s platform presentation was the absolutely Western style of the event. It was a low-key show, strikingly different from similar congresses of other political forces, which are clearly still influenced by the traditions of Soviet-era party meetings. A good hotel, juice and red-fish sandwiches in the foyer, a hall with a couple hundred seats, a campaign photo projected on the wall: the politician in front of the word “Moscow” in Khimki, and on stage not a lectern but a simple one-legged stand with a “Navalny” placard on a blue background—exactly the kind of setup you might see at some Iowa primary. And the politician himself behaved accordingly. Shirt and trousers, opening with a good joke, speaking like a normal person instead of the growling tone that had frightened everyone when Navalny spoke at rallies: being an ordinary, relatable guy is part of his positioning before voters. He lives with his family (his wife on stage is also a standard attribute of a Western politician), in a Soviet-style apartment block in Maryino, his children attend a regular school, go to the local clinic, and sit in traffic jams.
Photo: Vasily Maksimov Gazeta.ru: "Navalny’s Personal Platform" Alexei Navalny, a candidate for mayor of Moscow, presented his campaign platform. It was developed with the participation of former New Economic School rector Sergei Guriev. Among the opposition politician’s proposals are decentralization of power, the election of justices of the peace, tighter control over illegal migration, and a comprehensive audit of housing and коммунal services (public utilities and apartment building maintenance). The opposition figure will continue his campaign through September regardless of whether the Moscow City Election Commission allows him onto the ballot. RBC: A. Navalny Explained What He Plans to Do with Moscow Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny presented his campaign platform to journalists and volunteers under the slogan “Change Russia. Start with Moscow.” As the opposition politician himself explained, he wanted to “solemnly destroy once and for all the myth” that the opposition has nothing to offer.