Text version
Echo of Moscow
Yevgenia Albats ― Good evening. This is Echo of Moscow radio. I’m Yevgenia Albats, and as always I’m starting our program—the first one this year—devoted to politics, the political events of the week, and those events that will affect politics in the coming weeks and months. I apologize for the tautology. Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you had a good holiday season, and I wish you happiness. I wish the same to my guest, Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny. Alexei, hello.
Alexei Navalny ― Hi, hello, Zhenya. Thank you very much. Same to you.
Yevgenia Albats ― Thank you. 2017 was your year, of course. Your presidential campaign was a personal success for you. It was also a success for the country, where public politics returned thanks to you. Congratulations.
Alexei Navalny ― You see how interesting that is right away. You say it was my year, a big success. And here I am, sitting here as an unregistered candidate. And still I often hear people call it a success. That shows just how rotten politics is in our country. But it also shows that you mustn’t give up, and you have to keep doing what you do. That’s all.
Yevgenia Albats ― Did you really expect to be registered?
Alexei Navalny ― That was our openly declared goal. We understood perfectly well that they did not want to let me into the election. That became clear back in 2012, when they started opening criminal cases against me and then immediately passed a law that everyone said was basically written for Navalny. Under that law, convicted people cannot run for office. But we openly declared that we would try to build political pressure to such a level that they would be forced to let me run, as happened in the Moscow election in 2013. Perhaps we built too much pressure—they saw it, they were horrified by the scale of our campaign, by the number of volunteers. The fact that this campaign was real, not virtual, worked against us—they finally decided it was too scary to let us into the election.
A. Navalny: The fact that the campaign was real worked against us—they finally decided it was too scary to let us into the election
Yevgenia Albats ― What happens to your headquarters now? They’re in 84 cities, I think. Or 81 cities in Russia.
Alexei Navalny ― In 84 cities, including the so-called people’s headquarters, which we do not fund and which people open on their own. They will continue working in voter strike mode. The most important thing we created over this year—more than a year—is a real political structure of influence. It’s not exactly a party, more like a proto-party, a movement. In fact, it’s a large opposition movement, the biggest and the only one created in recent years. So of course we don’t want to lose it, and we will continue engaging in all kinds of politics. But right now our main task is organizing a voter strike—that is, an active boycott and a call for people not to go to this election. And at the same time, to deploy more observers than anyone has ever deployed before.
Yevgenia Albats ― The Presidium of the Supreme Court rejected your lawyers’ appeal against the Central Election Commission’s refusal to register you as a presidential candidate. Have you written that off, or do you think there is still a chance to force the issue?
Alexei Navalny ― I didn’t attend a single one of those court hearings. When the appeal was happening, I didn’t even follow it. Our lawyers did excellent work, the best they could possibly do. The law, justice, fairness—they are all on our side. But I understood perfectly well that this judicial system—come on, these are the same people who overturned my Kirovles verdict on the basis of a European Court of Human Rights ruling and then sent it back for retrial. In Soviet times these people jailed others for anti-Soviet activity, and now they jail people who speak out against our obscurantism. So I have absolutely no illusions about either the Supreme Court or the Constitutional Court. We do all this because the truth—and, as I said, the law—is on our side. And we will keep doing it. But we have no illusions. We have entered strike mode. We will boycott the election. That is our one and only strategy.
Yevgenia Albats ― You announced that January 28, 2018 would be a strike. What exactly will that be?
Alexei Navalny ― It will be a public action. A strike is really a process, from the moment the Central Election Commission made the decision that…
Yevgenia Albats ― I would say—sorry to interrupt—a strike movement is a process. But a strike itself is still some kind of single act, isn’t it?
Alexei Navalny ― A strike is a single act. You’re at a factory, they don’t pay your wages, and you say: I’m not going to work anymore. Same thing here. We are citizens of Russia, and we are being forced or persuaded to go vote. But we are not given political competition, we have no one to vote for. So we say: we are not going to this election. And that becomes a process in which we discuss it, argue with our opponents—or strikebreakers—who say no, you should still go. Or: we’ll go instead of you. So yes, it is a process, a difficult political process, and we will take part in it. Specifically on January 28, let me once again use this opportunity to call on everyone to participate. We will call on people to go out into the streets and, in the streets as well, make clear their attitude toward these elections, which are not elections. These are “elections” in quotation marks. And to demand real elections. Because a situation in which there have been no real elections for 18 years has led not only to political problems, but economic ones too. People are getting poorer.
Yevgenia Albats ― Back in 2011, when you came out with the slogan “vote for any party except the party of crooks and thieves,” it was clear—completely clear to everyone—what to do. I myself remember voting for Mironov’s A Just Russia, and afterward people asked me ten times: was that really right, look at Mironov. And I told them: look at Dmitry Gudkov, Gudkov Sr., Ilya Ponomarev, who were the only force of resistance in the first year of that State Duma’s existence. Now, frankly, I don’t see what the action is. People still need to understand: one, two, three. So tell me: one, two, three.
A. Navalny: The most important thing we created this year was a real political structure of influence
Alexei Navalny ― In 2011 our strategy was clear. In fact, it didn’t matter who you voted for; what mattered was that you voted against United Russia. There was no need to justify whether you voted for the Communists, A Just Russia, or Yabloko. It didn’t matter. You voted against United Russia so that its level of control over votes would fall enough for those pathetic, feeble parties to revive and be able to oppose United Russia in the State Duma. And that is what happened. Only thanks to falsification was the Kremlin able to preserve United Russia’s majority in the Duma. Those falsifications then led to the protests of 2011–2012. So it was the right strategy. But we have to understand that in all the years since, the Kremlin has been preparing to fight that strategy, because we were beating them with it. That is exactly why the most disgusting laws were introduced by the Communists and A Just Russia. That’s why people made the complaints to you that you just mentioned. They arranged everything so that you would have no second-choice candidate or party. So trying now to think in terms of the 2011 strategy is simply pointless. Here and now we have a specific political situation in which the Kremlin has simply programmed the election so that Putin is guaranteed to get between 73 and 76 percent. That’s my forecast. And nothing can happen in this election to prevent that. So the best strategy now is: first, don’t go to the election; second, urge everyone not to go; third, lower turnout by every possible means; fourth, organize observation so they cannot falsify turnout. That is exactly why the Kremlin is now working so frantically on turnout. You didn’t happen to see the video Roizman released literally the day before yesterday, did you?
Yevgenia Albats ― I did, of course. Leonid Volkov tweeted it.
Alexei Navalny ― And rightly so. After all, the mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city is saying exactly how they will drag turnout upward. We now have quite a lot of insider information and documents, and I’m sure all the documents will soon be published showing how, through door-to-door canvassing, through voting outside polling stations, through absentee certificates, the Kremlin will frantically pull up turnout. Because they understand perfectly well: nobody wants to go vote. And they need to stage legitimacy. Of course—and just to anticipate your next question—what level of turnout would deprive the authorities of legitimacy? There is no answer to that. Because it isn’t measured in percentages, it’s measured in feelings. Right now a man is walking down New Arbat and saying to himself: well, a lot of people voted for Putin, I still don’t like him, but let him stay. And tomorrow he’ll be walking and saying: no, he can’t stay there, it’s all fake. That’s the moment legitimacy collapses—but it isn’t measured in percentages. So now we simply need to act, forgive the banality, according to conscience. And if these elections are shameless and indecent, then you must not go to them, and you must actively persuade everyone else not to go either.
Yevgenia Albats ― Electoral behavior theory says that when a voter chooses whom to vote for, they are more likely to vote for someone who is capable of reaching the goal. What you are offering voters is something irrational. You understand that.
Alexei Navalny ― No, Zhenya, I’d say you’re contradicting yourself. Right: when a voter decides whom to vote for, they want to vote for someone who can reach the goal—or at least declares that they are trying to. But everyone except Putin has openly said many times in public: actually, we don’t want to be president, we understand our own insignificance, we will lose, and we don’t want to do anything. But we’re running in order to—and then comes some set of vague things, to say important words, or get something, or whatever. So why should a voter participate in that? And what happens is that we start persuading ourselves and trying to find some pretext, some rational explanation, some mathematical formula for a simple political fact: this is not an election, and the result will be 73–76 in any case. I can tell you right now what result this election will end with.
Yevgenia Albats ― Tell me.
Alexei Navalny ― I will.
Yevgenia Albats ― We’ve written it down. Shall we bet on something or not?
Alexei Navalny ― We’ll bet when you invite me next time. We’ll do our first poll in January, and then I’ll give you a substantiated forecast. For now, my forecast is: first place, Putin—73 to 86; second place, Zhirinovsky—10 to 13; third place, Grudinin—12 to 10; everyone else—between 2.5 and 1 percent. Yavlinsky, Sobchak, and Titov.
Yevgenia Albats ― So you reject the Levada forecast? Gudkov, the head of Levada, was on my show, and his forecast for Sobchak was around 7 percent.
Alexei Navalny ― That’s just ridiculous. Come on—Prokhorov got 7 percent in 2012, when there was enthusiasm, when you went to the election and voted for Prokhorov. Back then they weren’t talking about him the way they talked about A Just Russia. I went to the election, we all said, urged people: let’s go vote. And since then, first of all, it became obvious how we were deceived with this Prokhorov business, what nonsense it all was. But the country is different now, the regime is different. Of course, the candidates now—except for Zhirinovsky and Grudinin—have absolutely no chance of getting anything even close to over 5 percent.
Yevgenia Albats ― Pavel Grudinin is the only one you’ve spoken positively about lately. At least, I watched your Thursday program on the Navalny2018 channel…
Alexei Navalny ― On the Navalny Live channel. Navalny at 20:18.
Yevgenia Albats ― Sorry. You spoke about Grudinin with a good deal of sympathy. Though he, by contrast, has spoken rather sharply about you…
A. Navalny: We have no illusions—we’ve entered strike mode. We will boycott the election
Alexei Navalny ― He’s not allowed to anymore. That’s an interesting fact too. Before his nomination, when people occasionally asked him about me, Grudinin would say: I don’t know him personally, I know a little about his activities—but he always spoke sympathetically. Now he’s not allowed to, so he’s stopped speaking sympathetically. That’s also quite telling. But I can say that his public appearances lately, before his nomination, were fairly appealing to me. He was really speaking blunt truths, as they say. Though of course his biography overall—he was a United Russia deputy for 12 years. But at least he resembles a living person. Still, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he’s running any kind of campaign. Because if he were, he might be able to claim second place. As it is, I’m afraid he’ll even lose to Zhirinovsky. We actually want to conduct a separate poll on whether people even know that it’s not Zyuganov who’s running, but Grudinin. My assumption is that to this day nobody knows. He’s doing nothing at all. What’s the date today? The 8th. And our plan had been that if I were registered, then starting on the 1st I would be out there—we even calculated whether we could afford a plane so I could fly around and hold two rallies in every city. Because this is exactly your moment.
Yevgenia Albats ― What do you mean, whether you could afford a plane?
Alexei Navalny ― We wanted to know whether we had enough money to rent one. Because flying on regular commercial flights…
Yevgenia Albats ― Yes, with white leather seats.
Alexei Navalny ― Without—we couldn’t even afford seats at all. So we dropped it…
Yevgenia Albats ― Chubais and the 2003 campaign.
Alexei Navalny ― But if you want to campaign in a country this size, you need a plane. We couldn’t manage it, so we flew everywhere on regular flights. But that’s not the point. One way or another, from January 2 I would have switched into a mode of speaking twice in every city. Endless rallies, because this is your chance. Until the 15th, everyone is sitting in their apartments. Catch them while they’re warm. Collect signatures, campaign, drag them to rallies. They’ve got nothing else to do. Does it look like any of the candidates are doing that—for example, Grudinin? No, it doesn’t. That tells you what kind of percentages they can even hope for if they aren’t taking even the most basic steps.
Yevgenia Albats ― Sobchak is actually going door to door collecting votes, I think in Samara.
Alexei Navalny ― A candidate shouldn’t be going door to door. We just recently watched how a wonderful, highly competitive presidential campaign in the United States was run, where the underdog actually became president. They held meetings with voters, they held rallies—big rallies. And as you know, one reason people say Hillary Clinton didn’t become president is that she didn’t hold enough meetings in Wisconsin. She writes about it in her book.
Yevgenia Albats ― In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Philadelphia.
Alexei Navalny ― Exactly. So…
Yevgenia Albats ― But above all in the Midwest.
Alexei Navalny ― That is the candidate’s job: to visit cities intensively and hold large or relatively large meetings, depending on what they can manage. Not to go door to door just to get photographed somewhere—that also needs to be done, but in between big meetings. Otherwise there will be no real campaigning. And most importantly—why all these candidates, and we started talking about Grudinin, toward whom I still feel some sympathy—because he is not a real candidate. Besides the fact that he also…
Yevgenia Albats ― Why do you feel sympathy for him? I watched him on Solovyov’s show—he’s an outright left-wing populist.
Alexei Navalny ― Right now he…
Yevgenia Albats ― The only thing that might bring you together is the slogan “I’ll jail them all”…
Alexei Navalny ― I haven’t heard him on Solovyov, so I can’t comment on his latest public appearances. But I did listen to him at all those forums—the Moscow Economic Forum. There it was him, Potapenko, and several other vivid figures, including the farmer Melnichenko.
Yevgenia Albats ― Yes, he was saying there are no real food products anymore, it’s all made from palm oil.
Alexei Navalny ― They were quite good, and Grudinin in particular spoke very well in defense of business, small business—that was quite interesting. He was one of the entrepreneurs who wasn’t afraid to criticize the authorities, though he avoided criticizing Putin personally. Still, based on the fact that he had at least been engaged in some political activity in recent years and had spoken out, I do feel some sympathy for him. But why are none of them real now? If you want votes, you have to criticize Vladimir Putin. Because his power in Russia is a personalist regime—did I pronounce that correctly?—that he established. If you want percentages, you have to bite those percentages off him. That’s the only chance of even ideally aiming for a second round, for double-digit support, for broad backing. It’s not about trying to mobilize someone on Facebook or through Solovyov’s show. Forgive me, but you have to go after Putin hard so that voters peel away from him and come to you. But not one of them is doing that. That was the main condition for their being allowed in. So the campaign is fake, and going to this election is shameful.
Yevgenia Albats ― The only concrete action you are proposing is observers.
A. Navalny: The Kremlin has simply programmed the election so that Putin is guaranteed to get between 73 and 76 percent
Alexei Navalny ― There you go—what do you mean, the only action I’m proposing? I’m proposing a boycott of the election.
Yevgenia Albats ― I’m one of the slow ones, Alexei Anatolyevich.
Alexei Navalny ― Let me explain. Fine. Since you’re one of the slow ones—though I know you’re not, but since you’re playing one, forgive me—I’ll explain. Compared with all the other candidates, who have done absolutely nothing and did absolutely nothing over the past year, I am proposing a boycott, active campaigning, putting leaflets up in apartment buildings, printing newspapers, and running this campaign—organizational work so that people do not go vote. We will organize observers—not 20, not 30, not 1,000, not 5,000, and not only in major cities, as everyone else does. We will do it across the whole country, with tens of thousands of people. That is enormous organizational work.
Yevgenia Albats ― So on March 18, 2018—observers, you’ll have to register them all. That’s not a simple matter.
Alexei Navalny ― Of course. Logistically, it’s a fantastically difficult task. In reality, no matter what anyone says, no one has ever fielded more than 20,000 real observers. Never. The Communists claim: we covered 90,000 polling stations. But we know how that works. They just hand over slips of paper to the local administrations, and the administration seats teachers, United Russia people, whoever. We want to place real, genuine observers, including in places where they’ve never been before—in the Volga region, even in the North Caucasus, including Dagestan in particular. It’s an astonishingly difficult task. Astonishingly expensive. We understand that the Kremlin and the wonderful Ella Pamfilova will resist this with all their might. But we will do it. So when you say we’re only proposing observation—no, we’re doing all the work for all the candidates, and for the entire political system.
Yevgenia Albats ― I’m glad you used the word “we,” because in your interview with The New Times I kept reading: I, I, I. So you’re not alone after all, Alyosha. You really…
Alexei Navalny ― Maybe your reporters changed “we” to “I,” because I say both “I” and “we.” But of course, especially now in voter strike mode, it’s “we.” It’s the people who have been thrown out of the political system. I’m just one of those who publicly represents their interests. I come to Echo of Moscow on their behalf and speak here. But of course none of this—our whole campaign—would be possible without the people doing the work all across the country. In the overwhelming majority of cases, 99.9 percent, completely free of charge.
Yevgenia Albats ― Do you have a sociological profile of the people who make up your volunteers, those who were ready to sign for you, those who take part in the headquarters?
Alexei Navalny ― Educated residents of large cities who have internet access.
Yevgenia Albats ― And age?
Alexei Navalny ― Most often 25 to 34—that’s the core—but there are also quite a lot of older people. It’s hard to count all this, because many of these people don’t register in any databases at all. We have 200,000 registered volunteers. And now that we have a little more time, we’ll conduct a detailed study of who they are. It’s interesting to understand: are they center-left, center-right?
Yevgenia Albats ― Very interesting.
Alexei Navalny ― What are their views on different areas of life apart from Putin and corruption? We’ll do all that and understand them better. But for now…
Yevgenia Albats ― You said somewhere that Sobchak is a classic representative of expensive, successful, overfed Moscow, while you are the candidate of the country—that after traveling around the cities, you now understand much better…
Alexei Navalny ― I didn’t say it that way, but you formulated it correctly.
Yevgenia Albats ― So tell me: how do the people you met in Russia, at your rallies, in your headquarters, and so on, differ from that overfed Moscow?
Alexei Navalny ― First of all, I didn’t say “overfed Moscow,” and there is no such thing…
Yevgenia Albats ― That’s my interpretation.
Alexei Navalny ― …there is no such thing as overfed Moscow. That’s important. I understood this before too. After all, I’m from the outskirts of Moscow, and in that sense I definitely never belonged to any elite or Moscow bohemia. So I always understood that wasn’t true. And now it’s even less true. Moscow, despite the fact that all the money is concentrated here, is full of people living paycheck to paycheck. They spend their last money on rent and can’t afford anything else. City Hall tells us the average salary in Moscow is 60,000 or 80,000 rubles, but that has nothing to do with reality. Not in the slightest.
Yevgenia Albats ― And your figures?
Alexei Navalny ― We would rather say 35,000 to 40,000 rubles.
Yevgenia Albats ― And how do you know that?
Alexei Navalny ― Through the same opinion polling we conduct. But I’m not claiming I can give you a representative figure right now. What we do know for certain about the regions is that they differ from Moscow in that, first of all, they are much poorer. Rosstat’s average wage figures actually cover only about 38 percent of the population—employees of the largest corporations and public-sector workers, whose salaries are easy to count. Everyone else is, to one degree or another, hidden from them. And wages there are much lower. I know for a fact: you go to a region where the official average salary is 31,000 rubles, you start asking people, and they’ll tell you 22,000, 20,000, 19,000, 14,000, 15,000. So the regions, unlike Moscow—even the biggest cities like St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk—are defined first by poverty, and second by hopelessness. There are no prospects. In Moscow there are still some prospects. You meet people earning good salaries—100,000 rubles. You understand that maybe, if you try, you can find that kind of job too, if you’re young and active enough. In the regions that doesn’t exist. No matter how hard you try, no matter how smart, educated, and hardworking you are—even if you’re ready to work three jobs at once—your ceiling will be 45,000 to 60,000 rubles, and that’s it. No prospects at all. That is the main thing about the country and about our election campaign. Because we were talking precisely to those people, and relying on those people, who realized that the lack of economic prospects in their lives is connected to this disgusting, hopeless political regime.
A. Navalny: If these elections are shameless and indecent, then you must not go to them
Yevgenia Albats ― When Yeltsin was entering big politics in the late 1980s, his electorate had a very female face. Women loved him. They desired him. When you look out at the crowd standing in front of you in the cities, what kind of faces do you see? Young, male…
Alexei Navalny ― Women do love us, but only a little. The research we’ve done—as I said, we’ll do more detailed work—but for now the statistics the internet gives us, the traffic figures, show that we have certain problems with the female audience, simply because our means of delivery, of delivering the message and information, are very heavily oriented toward…
Yevgenia Albats ― Alexei, sorry, I don’t want us to get cut off. News and advertising on Echo.
Yevgenia Albats ― This is Echo of Moscow. Yevgenia Albats at the microphone. In the Echo of Moscow studio is Alexei Navalny. Alexei, I interrupted you when you were talking about the demographics of the people standing in front of you. You were saying that the female component…
Alexei Navalny ― There are fewer women. Because our methods of communication rely primarily on YouTube, and in principle it has a more male audience. I’ve spoken with various channel owners and authors, including non-political ones, and there’s a male skew there. That has an effect. But what’s very encouraging is that we saw the situation changing over the course of the year. I started—my last tour lasted from September 15 until the last days before registration—and you could clearly see that the female audience was growing. Second, there were many more older people. That’s great, it works really well.
Yevgenia Albats ― I was planning to ask you this at the end, but since we’re talking about your channels: you are creating television, that’s completely obvious. Are you planning to pursue this professionally after March 18, to create some kind of television holding on YouTube?
Alexei Navalny ― I don’t want to do that, and I would never do it in my life if…
Yevgenia Albats ― Meaning?
Alexei Navalny ― If there were other channels. But where can I hear news about myself now? If we were discussing this three years ago, we could name 20 media outlets that might report on the ACF’s latest investigation. A year ago, it would already have been 10. Now you can count them on one hand. And among them, in terms of major outlets with an immediate reach of 100,000 people, there’s only Echo of Moscow, where I am right now. In that sense, the information space around us has narrowed, so we were forced to create all these channels. I record videos, which I’m not especially good at. We’re constantly experimenting, and our experiments are not always successful. But I’m tremendously grateful to the people on YouTube who are watching us right now and supporting all our experiments. Of course we’re not going to build any kind of holding company. That costs money.
Yevgenia Albats ― But you are doing it—you have programs running.
Alexei Navalny ― Well, everything we do looks…
Yevgenia Albats ― Dud is already the face of Alfa Bank. We can assume we’re talking about a fee of a million dollars. So…
Alexei Navalny ― As you understand, it would be rather difficult for me to become the face of some bank, and I have no desire to. Starting this year, we’ll cautiously begin experimenting with advertising on some programs. We don’t know how to do it, but we’re forced to.
Yevgenia Albats ― Hire someone who does know how.
Alexei Navalny ― We will. Of course we will. 2018 will be the year when this direction of ours—creating different kinds of, I’m almost afraid to say television…
Yevgenia Albats ― Communications.
Alexei Navalny ― Communications. We’ll be experimenting very actively. But you remember how our experiment was halted at one point when the FSB came in and carried absolutely everything out of our office, every electronic device. And only thanks to the people who watch us did we raise the money and buy everything again. So we understand that they will most likely keep doing that. But we simply have no other choice. We are forced to make these programs and all these things. We don’t know how to do it, we understand it looks terribly clumsy and strange. But we do it.
A. Navalny: If you want percentages, you have to bite those percentages off Putin
Yevgenia Albats ― You know, Alyosha, we’ve known each other so long that I remember when you and Masha Gaidar were doing debates at Club Bilingua…
Alexei Navalny ― That happened.
Yevgenia Albats ― Then they were even planning to invite you onto TV Center, and you were ready to go…
Alexei Navalny ― They actually did invite me, but after the first pilot episode they fired me.
Yevgenia Albats ― And Vladislav Surkov was categorically against it, they say. He immediately…
Alexei Navalny ― That’s exactly why I was fired.
Yevgenia Albats ― You were seen as dangerous. So listen, the progress is enormous—from Club Bilingua to a million-subscriber YouTube channel.
Alexei Navalny ― There’s a saying: necessity is the mother of invention. We have no money and no means of communication, so we’re inventive. We have to be.
Yevgenia Albats ― You keep playing poor. Judging by the investigations you produce…
Alexei Navalny ― No, when it comes to investigations, I’m not playing poor. We do them better than anyone else in the country, that’s absolutely certain. In fact, people criticize me for boasting too much about that. But our television product, our video product, our live-stream channel—I’m very proud that we created it without being professionals. But frankly, there’s still a lot to work on.
Yevgenia Albats ― I won’t argue. I want to ask you about the people around you. You now have two sort of spokespeople—Vladimir Milov and Sergei Aleksashenko—who constantly appear as your representatives. Sergei Aleksashenko more on economics, though not only that. And Vladimir Milov, I see, will even debate Maksim Katz on Echo about whether to boycott the election or not. Both of these remarkable people are undoubtedly talented, but they have reputational problems. One of a moral nature, the other connected with the days of GKO state bonds, offshore companies—if that means anything to you—and so on. You are someone who is very exacting about how people earn their money and what they do. You have destroyed more than one reputation, including political ones. And yet you choose as your spokespeople people against whom, at least on the internet, one can read quite a few accusations. Explain your choice.
Alexei Navalny ― Zhenya, you understand that there is more written about me on the internet than about anyone else. And in that sense I’m very proud that both Aleksashenko and Milov…
Yevgenia Albats ― I don’t remember ever reading that you tried to steal someone else’s wife.
Alexei Navalny ― Honestly, I’m not interested in that. Radio listeners won’t be interested in that story either. You know it, I know it. Unfortunately, we all know it. But that concerns wives, husbands, and whatever they do somewhere. I’m immensely proud that both Milov and Aleksashenko, who don’t get a kopeck from us and never have, nevertheless began actively helping us in the campaign. Milov, on top of that, traveled around the whole country…
Yevgenia Albats ― So reputation doesn’t interest you.
Alexei Navalny ― Reputation interests me very much. And of course our movement is impossible without reputation. But I believe both Milov and Aleksashenko are excellent people to work with. Everyone has a difficult character. Everyone has a long history of conflicts.
Yevgenia Albats ― No, this isn’t about character. I’m talking only about reputation—what you could find on the internet. Since you really do produce the best investigations in the country.
Alexei Navalny ― I read all the information on the internet, and I believe that both Milov and Aleksashenko are people we can and should work with. I value them highly and I’m very grateful to them. They are truly top professionals and they do these things. Milov—good Lord, how many years did I quarrel with him? Read how he tore into me in the harshest terms during the mayoral campaign, for example…
Yevgenia Albats ― I remember his antisemitic posts very well.
Alexei Navalny ― I don’t remember that. In any case, there are different histories in my relationships with these people. We are building communication with all normal people. And our relationships are equal across the board. They are not obliged to report to me, and I cannot give them orders. But those two, and many others, help us sincerely, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who works with us. This is life—different people, different relationships. So as of today, let me repeat and emphasize: I am very proud that both of them are working with us.
Yevgenia Albats ― I see. Understood. Now my second question. In your program—and since it’s your program, it doesn’t really matter who wrote it—you propose a presidential-parliamentary republic as the form of government in the future beautiful Russia. Georgia tried that, and it ended badly. All it took was for Ivanishvili to replace Saakashvili, and democracy shrank dramatically.
Ukraine tried it too, and it ended badly twice over.
Alexei Navalny ― The United States tried it, and everything has been going just fine for several hundred years.
Yevgenia Albats ― No, the United States is not—you’re mistaken. The United States is not a presidential-parliamentary republic.
Alexei Navalny ― It is.
A. Navalny: It is critically important that the new president voluntarily give up control over the judicial system
Yevgenia Albats ― That’s not true. The United States is a presidential republic. A classic one. And by the way, we are not a super-presidential republic, as you say. Constitutionally, we copied the model of France’s Fifth Republic, where the president is not the head of the executive branch but the head of state.
Alexei Navalny ― That is exactly what a super-presidential republic is. But, Zhenya, thank you for this question. It’s important. Practical political science here doesn’t make much sense. Constitutionally, we copied something from France’s Fifth Republic. In reality, we are—I don’t even know which Latin American model, but not yet a dictatorship, rather an autocracy. Belarus on paper is one thing, in practice something else entirely. As is well known, the Soviet Constitution was also quite democratic, and the Soviet criminal procedure code was very advanced, copied from the best models. That doesn’t matter much. The main thing we say in the program is that the president’s powers must be cut back and redistributed toward parliament. And the guarantee that the whole system will not later break down and that power will not be usurped by a new president—a bad Navalny, an evil someone else—must be the judicial system. In Georgia, nothing worked out because, unfortunately, judicial reform was not carried through, and control over it remained with the president. For supposedly good reasons—let’s jail corrupt officials, bad traffic cops, and so on. But they kept the judicial system for themselves, so when another president came in, he simply used that same judicial system to jail the previous власти. And that is critically important: that a new president—Navalny, for example, in a good scenario—voluntarily give up control over the judicial system. That would make reform much harder. It would make practical work much harder, because oligarchs and various structures would begin influencing the courts from the shadows. But you’ve given it up, you can’t call anyone. Even if you pick up the phone and call, they tell you to get lost on the other end. That is the most important thing. So based on practical experience, on many conversations with different people—and there is always disagreement, you disagree, someone else agrees—I believe Russia now needs a parliamentary-presidential republic with a very powerful independent judicial system that will create balance.
Yevgenia Albats ― Ukraine. It also went down the path of a presidential-parliamentary republic. Let’s say this clearly.
Alexei Navalny ― You’re just like Putin. You always want to drag Ukraine into our conversation.
Yevgenia Albats ― For our readers, our listeners, let’s spell it out and say that a presidential-parliamentary republic is a republic in which there is a head of the executive branch and there is a legislature, a parliament, which can impeach the head of the executive branch, and so on. The clearest example is of course France, whose last French Revolution, as we know, was in 1830, and which has gone through a long and remarkable path. But there is no other successful example like it. Ukraine tried to do this, and we see how Poroshenko is now splendidly breaking the Rada over his knee.
Alexei Navalny ― And we see the main reasons why it doesn’t work in Ukraine. And one of the main reasons for this political failure of reform in Russia too, of attempts to build democracy, is the oligarchs. The fact that they control absolutely everything in Ukraine—in that sense they control an even larger share of the economy, and are even more corrupt, venal, and cynical than in Russia. Of course that is a crucial factor that adds a very substantial shade to this abstract political science discussion we’re having.
Yevgenia Albats ― It’s not abstract. If you look at the 15 former Soviet republics, you’ll see that three republics—the former Baltic republics, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia—went with the parliamentary model, as did all European countries with one exception. And 12, including Russia, went down the path of the presidential republic, or a variant in which the president is head of state.
Alexei Navalny ― But they didn’t usurp power because they chose that path. They did it because they controlled the judicial system, they seized the media…
Yevgenia Albats ― But that is the whole point of presidential power. The winner takes all.
Alexei Navalny ― That is exactly why, in the political section of our program, from the very beginning we emphasize that the president’s term and powers in general must be delegated away toward parliament.
Yevgenia Albats ― Eight years would be enough for you to break everything and jail Albats.
Alexei Navalny ― I wouldn’t be able to, and I have no desire to jail Albats. And if I suddenly wanted to…
Yevgenia Albats ― What guarantees do I have? That you happen to like me?
Alexei Navalny ― …say, Zhenya, you dragged Ukraine into our conversation, and I wanted to jail you for that—I wouldn’t be able to. Because an honest court would acquit you, and I would be impeached for trying to jail an innocent person. That’s all. That’s how it should work. And that’s how it will work in a normal country.
Yevgenia Albats ― I want to understand your views clearly. So you are a supporter of a presidential system after all…
Alexei Navalny ― A presidential-parliamentary one. I believe that at this stage of Russia’s development—we’re not discussing this abstractly, we’re discussing what to do the next day.
Yevgenia Albats ― That’s what they said in Ukraine.
A. Navalny: Russia now needs a parliamentary-presidential republic with a very powerful independent judicial system
Alexei Navalny ― And now Saakashvili is running around the streets, as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin likes to tell me. Why are you so obsessed with Ukraine? There are many other examples. We’re talking about the specific situation in Russia right now and how it should be solved. I’m saying it should begin with radically reducing the president’s powers. But you don’t want to hear that. Instead you’ve latched onto a piece of paper that says “presidential-parliamentary” or “parliamentary-presidential,” and all these pointless debates revolve around that.
Yevgenia Albats ― Give me an example of a country…
Alexei Navalny ― I don’t want to give any examples. Because this is all abstract political science, Zhenya. Any example can be interpreted one way or the other. It’s all juggling geography and history textbooks. There’s no truth in that. I’m talking about the reality that objectively exists and how to change it for the better.
Yevgenia Albats ― Okay. But if a rational voter reads programs—and you know that the goods you are offering me, the voter…
Alexei Navalny ― Yevgenia Markovna…
Yevgenia Albats ― …I’m not buying it.
Alexei Navalny ― …when you invited me onto the program, I assumed there would be a certain level of personal safety for me here. And now you want me to die laughing. When you say that large numbers of voters read those sections of programs—nobody reads those sections of programs. We write them, and ours is the best program, but people are completely uninterested in these minimal distinctions and word games.
Yevgenia Albats ― Okay. Alex Bukarev asks: “Alexei, unfortunately you were not allowed into the election, which was predictable. For that reason, for the first time I will not go vote. What are you going to do next? Will you take part in other elections, for example for mayor or parliament, or prepare for 2024?”
Alexei Navalny ― Personally, I do not plan to run in the mayoral election.
Yevgenia Albats ― Why not, by the way?
Alexei Navalny ― What would be the point? I want to use the remarkable political structure of influence we’ve created to force the authorities to reckon with us. Running from one election to another would simply be indecent toward voters. If I wanted to run for mayor, I should have honestly said: guys, I’m running for mayor, I’m going there, I’m building some kind of system. That’s how it should work. But to pop up right before the election, as everyone does here, and say: oh, take me too, I can get 7 percent—what the hell for? I don’t want to do that. But I believe we should take part in every election if we are allowed in. And if we’re not, then we have to look for other options.
Yevgenia Albats ― Alexei Venediktov suggested that you…
Alexei Navalny ― Ah, that Alexei Venediktov.
Yevgenia Albats ― …well, he is the editor-in-chief here—that in the mayoral election you would nevertheless support Ilya Yashin. Is that true? Do you think Ilya will run…
Alexei Navalny ― I think Ilya is doing absolutely tremendous work in Moscow right now, with Moscow voters. Not only is he meeting with people very effectively and dealing with housing and utilities issues, pensioners’ benefits, and everything else—he’s really fighting. He’s also doing remarkable political things, like his recent holiday event when he went head-to-head with City Hall. But I haven’t discussed this with Yashin, or really with anyone… I’m not even thinking about it. First of all, the election is still a long way off. I know I won’t be taking part in it. Everything else is secondary for me right now—I’m focused on the presidential election. But naturally I will support the candidate who is doing active work. I don’t want to support idlers or people who just post something on Facebook. Yashin is working very well. But as I understand it, he doesn’t have such plans either. And I would like everyone who wants to run to say so now—and to demonstrate through their work, not only to me but to you and everyone else, that they deserve our support.
Yevgenia Albats ― Yak007 asks: “When should we expect your film ‘He Is Not Your Vovan’? Haven’t you really dug up anything on the man who can’t learn your surname?”
Alexei Navalny ― That’s classified information. We are constantly doing investigative work in different directions on different people. None of this is easy, and it can’t have any specific deadlines. And we never reveal any details of our upcoming investigations.
Yevgenia Albats ― But you are doing such investigations.
Alexei Navalny ― Any investigation of corruption in Russia—big corruption—is connected to Putin. Any one of them. Any film or anything about Rotenberg, Timchenko, Shamalov—it’s all about Putin.
A. Navalny: Any investigation into major corruption in Russia is connected to Putin
Yevgenia Albats ― Cherepovets asks: “What is the probability of Russia collapsing like the Soviet Union did? What could contribute to that collapse? What would you do to unite the country ideologically and economically if you came to power?”
Alexei Navalny ― What Putin is doing now is certainly working toward the breakup of Russia. Taking all power away from the regions, squeezing everyone, dispersing everyone—because later, when the pendulum swings back the other way, that will lead to centrifugal tendencies. So yes, I really do think Putin is working toward the breakup of the country. Despite the fact that they are the ones who most loudly claim they are supposedly trying to hold it together, as if it were already falling apart. The economy—no ideological foundation will unite our country. People need decent wages if Russia is to be all right.
Yevgenia Albats ― “Makarov14 asks: ‘Alexei, do you have a clear plan for after March 18?’”
Alexei Navalny ― I do have a clear plan for after March 18. After March 18 we will use every mechanism available to force the authorities to reckon with us. We will participate in elections and demand our right to participate. We will spread information, we will create new communication channels, as we discussed. We are at least 30 to 40 percent of the residents of the largest cities—people who have already realized that they have simply been thrown out of the political system. People who were told: guys, you are not supposed to be in this election. You cannot nominate your own representatives. We will decide who your representatives are, and you can come vote for them. Vote. All these people—they are us. And we will work to make them start influencing the authorities in different ways: through elections, through information, through anything—leaflets, whatever. Politics has once again returned to its most primitive state. But perhaps also its most honest one. Right now, meetings with voters and the distribution of newspapers and leaflets are the most important and central political processes.
Yevgenia Albats ― But for you, politics is a profession. What will happen to the Progress Party?
Alexei Navalny ― We never stopped trying to register the Progress Party. We have not abandoned those attempts, and we won’t. We believe we need a party. It’s not the most comfortable form of political work for most people; party politics is probably the most discredited institution, as we know even from numerous opinion polls. But it matters. And the question of participating in elections is tied to party registration. Because they keep telling us: oh, go to PARNAS or go to Yabloko. And there you have to fall to one knee and kiss the ring, and then maybe we’ll let one person into your list. That is unacceptable. And most importantly, it produces no result. So of course we will continue trying to register it. We will continue demanding registration of the Progress Party.
A. Navalny: What Putin is doing now is certainly working toward the breakup of Russia
Yevgenia Albats ― What will you say to your supporters on March 19, 2018?
Alexei Navalny ― I will give my supporters an assessment of my work and their work up to that point—whether we achieved anything or not. I will call on them to keep working. Because March 19 is not some super-date; it is simply the technical date on which Putin’s reappointment will take place. He will get his 73 percent and keep waving those percentages in our faces. And on March 19 I will say: people, don’t believe that piece of paper, it’s fake. We will continue fighting to influence the political system. Because without our influence, nothing good will happen; without our influence, we will continue to degrade and grow poorer.
Yevgenia Albats ― There are all these predictions that after the inauguration there will be a sharp tightening of the regime, since the leader is not getting any younger. Your forecast: will things get worse?
Alexei Navalny ― Of course they will get worse. I don’t think something abrupt will happen all at once. That’s the traditional forecast of people who like making forecasts—that from such-and-such a moment…
Yevgenia Albats ― You have a program on your channel called “It Will Get Worse.” As if it could get any worse.
Alexei Navalny ― There is such a program. That’s why I say it will get worse. That’s the logic of the regime. Everything gets worse. The number of political prisoners is growing. Absurd criminal cases—we don’t even laugh at them anymore when someone is jailed for a like on VKontakte. It’s just routine news now; it appears every single day. So of course the whole logic of this regime is that people will get poorer, corruption will grow, political prisoners will increase, repression will increase. Not in sudden leaps, but it will keep building. So yes, it will get worse. And that is exactly why we must fight.
Yevgenia Albats ― That was Alexei Navalny. Thank you, and we’ll hear each other again in a week.