This news is both bad and good. The UNITED RUSSIA faction has introduced a legislative initiative to hold Moscow City Duma elections in 45 single-member districts.
... In elections held in single-member districts, deputies receive their mandate directly from voters rather than from political parties, which creates political accountability to the electorate. Voters, in turn, know their deputies better than when those deputies are elected from party lists under a proportional system. The voter is able to take into account the candidate’s personal qualities—reputation, professionalism, attitude toward the most important and difficult problems facing the urban community, and so on—rather than only the political party’s campaign platform. ... In essence, the bill that has been introduced is aimed at the further democratization of the electoral process in the city of Moscow. The proposed changes will motivate regional branches of political parties, local communities, and all candidates for the Moscow City Duma to run effective campaigns in single-member constituencies, closely tied to the interests of the residents of those areas. In addition, this will help bring new and effective local opinion leaders into regional political activity—people who know the problems of their districts and voters in depth. http://duma.mos.ru/cgi-bin/pbl_web?vid=2&osn_id=0&id_rub=1699&news_unom=41021 Right now the Moscow City Duma has 35 deputies. Of those, 32 are from United Russia, which allows the crooks in Moscow City Hall to pass any garbage they like into law, making it possible to loot budget money. Or to block any useful initiatives, such as our bill on transparency in the setting of housing and utility tariffs and their independent audit. The new convocation was supposed to have 45 deputies, and the plan was that 23 of them would come in via party lists (we would vote not for a person but for a party) and 22 via single-member districts (we vote not for a party but for a person). Now United Russia wants—and will make sure—that all 45 deputies are elected in single-member districts. We will not be voting for parties, and for the opposition to get its candidates elected, it will have to unite, divide up the districts, hold primaries, find 45 strong candidates, and run 45 separate campaigns. Each district has 160,000–170,000 voters, and the district boundaries will be announced at the last moment. That is very difficult and expensive. And it will be much easier for United Russia, because its “campaign headquarters” are the district and prefectural administrations—that is, a ready-made distributed network that does not even need financing, since it already exists on taxpayers’ money. That, in fact, is the bad news from the standpoint of tactics in our struggle against this thieving regime. But from a strategic point of view, we can of course give old Mr. Internet a satisfied pat on the back and say: we did a great job together. Because United Russia’s desire to switch entirely to single-member districts in the Moscow City Duma elections means one thing above all: United Russia has finally acknowledged the success of our campaign, United Russia—the party of crooks and thieves, aimed at destroying its approval rating. In the country’s largest city, home to 15% of the population, they are afraid to run in elections because they know they cannot come in first and most likely cannot even get more than 20%. If before we saw a trend in which United Russia candidates ran for governor or mayor while being embarrassed by their party affiliation and modestly calling themselves “independents,” now the situation is entirely different: United Russia itself, as a political actor, is admitting that it is so unpopular and so widely hated that every public appearance under its own name only harms it further. And after all, United Russia is Putin’s main political project. Colossal resources were poured into it, and United Russia was at one time the most important instrument for the usurpation and retention of power. Well, that’s that—sic transit gloria mundi (“thus passes the glory of the world”). No matter how many athletes, actors, doctors, singers, famous balalaika players, and saxophonists they recruited into the party, the consolidated opinion of the Russian people remains: “United Russia is the Party of Crooks and Thieves.” Probably, if back then in 2011, when this poster appeared, someone had told us that three years later United Russia would be hiding its own name in order to run in elections, we would have been pleasantly surprised.
Everyone who contributed to the Good Machine of Truth and to the campaign against these vile crooks deserves praise. What conclusions should we draw from all this? The political-philosophical conclusion. We should become even more firmly convinced that United Russia—and the Kremlin crooks in general—are Russia’s real enemies, without any irony or exaggeration. They do not care about the country’s interests or its development. Everything they do is aimed at one thing: holding on to power and enriching themselves as a consequence of that power. As one well-known analyst says, all they want is money, money, money. Quite recently they were shouting themselves hoarse that it was in the people’s interest to abolish single-member districts. Now they are shouting that the people want single-member districts back. Gubernatorial elections are unnecessary. Gubernatorial elections are necessary. Elections are necessary, but with a filter. The “against all” option should be abolished. The “against all” option should be brought back. And so on and so forth. And this is not happening over 30 or 50 years as part of the evolution of a party system. No—this is all happening right before our eyes. The Kremlin riffraff looks at opinion polls and rewrites the laws every year to make it easier to stay in power and steal. There is no other goal. Which means that any action, word, step, or click against United Russia is a righteous struggle of the old Russian bogatyrs (epic warriors) against a disgusting swamp hydra, slimy and revolting. Seriously, once again we are convinced: the struggle against Putin and his “Party of Crooks and Thieves” is a struggle for the interests of Russia and our people. Explain this to everyone. The organizational-political conclusion: for a while, everything will seem more difficult and more confusing. What we will see in the Moscow City Duma elections and then across the country: a) a growing role for all sorts of fake fronts and spoiler candidates running under slogans like “we’re not against, we’re in favor,” “we’re not the opposition, we’re shmopposition,” “the world isn’t black and white, United Russia can do good things too”; I assume the main fake-front refrain will be: “we’re not with United Russia, we’re not with the Bolotnaya crowd (the anti-Kremlin protest movement associated with Bolotnaya Square), we’re on our own, a third force,” and so on; these fake fronts and spoilers will be financed by City Hall and the Kremlin, and their task will be to get 3–7% and help United Russia candidates win a plurality. These fake fronts and spoilers will get access to electronic media and pose there as the “opposition.” b) Sobyanin and Rakova will create some bogus committees of “observers” and “fair-election people,” stuffing them with “conditionally respectable” figures. Just yesterday, the Union of Journalists awarded Sobyanin a diploma “for the fairest elections.” These “conditionally respectable” people will muddy the waters and respond to every falsification and violation by saying: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! WHY DON’T YOU WRITE US A LETTER AND WE’LL DISCUSS IT. WE’LL DISCUSS IT RIGHT AT A ROUNDTABLE. WE WON’T JUST LET THIS SLIDE. c) a crucial factor will be Kremlin pressure on the Communist Party and Civic Platform to force them to nominate candidates in all 45 districts and not take part in opposition-wide coordination over who runs where. If they buckle and go along with that, they will solve 60% of United Russia’s problems. d) all United Russia candidates will repaint themselves as “independents,” while genuine independents will be removed from the ballot en masse over “invalid signatures” and technical violations. e) any attempts to hold primaries for joint opposition candidates will be met with media attacks and coercive pressure. In this situation, personal face-to-face campaigning will become even more important. It will be harder to explain what is happening with a poster alone. So each of us will have to do explanatory work with the people around us, so that they understand that the “List of Thieves” exists—that is, the list of independent candidates backed by City Hall. It is a repainted United Russia list. Anything that can prevent their election is good. Anything that helps them is bad. If we do not get lazy, rein in our personal ambitions, divide up the districts, and help all the good people, then we will succeed.