“Flight Debrief” from July 15, 2019.

22 hours 5 minutes. Hello, this is “Debriefing” — a program about people and the decisions they make in their lives. It will be hosted today by Masha Mayers and me, Stanislav Kryuchkov.

Good evening!

Here, every hour brings a decision. And with us today is Alexei Navalny. Alexei, hello!

Hello everyone!

Hello!

Alexei, why was there a feeling during the 2013 election that your participation was beneficial to Sobyanin, but now the mayor’s office is behaving like this, effectively through the Moscow City Election Commission?

At the beginning of the 2013 election campaign, Sobyanin had the impression that my participation benefited him. Frankly speaking, that was the only reason I was allowed to run. They thought I would get 3–4%. But by the end of the campaign, obviously, he realized he had miscalculated. And I think — I don’t even think, I am sure — that, of course, the main reason for the absolute and even unexpected lawlessness, the unexpectedly extreme degree of lawlessness in what is happening now in the Moscow City Duma campaign, is that United Russia understands perfectly well that they will lose to all candidates. Well, now they have removed about 20 independents. Let’s be honest: among them, 5–6–7 are quite strong. There are middling ones, there are frankly weak candidates. But the Moscow mayor’s office understands that United Russia will lose even to weak candidates. That is precisely why they cleared out everything with such astonishing persistence. To be honest, we expected some kind of trick. That is, we expected some cunning intrigue, some combination: let some through, keep others out. But they simply let no one through.

But the fact that, strictly speaking, there is no “United Russia” as such in these elections — isn’t that the trick?

Apparently that did not seem sufficient to them. Yes, of course, we expected their main trick, and we talked a lot about it. And we devote much of our “smart voting” strategy to explaining to people: look, United Russia is running — it is simply now running under the name “independent candidates,” not under the name “United Russia.” But they thought it over, counted it up, and I am sure, of course, conducted sociological research — and saw that even United Russia’s self-nominated candidates would lose badly. In fact, we know of one such sociological survey (it was conducted by Levada), where they measured the ratings of Yashin and United Russia self-nominated candidate Kasamara. Yashin, in my opinion, is ahead of her by 6 times or 4 times. That is, there are not the slightest chances. That is exactly why Yashin was finally removed from the election 2 hours ago.

And what happened today at the meeting between Yashin and Gorbunov? After all, we arranged it.

Listen, that happened on your end.

But we were not there.

You arranged it, well done. I listened to your broadcast this morning and was very glad when you publicly asked Gorbunov: “Are you ready to meet with the candidates?” and he said: “Ready.”

He said: “I’ve been waiting for them since morning — nobody comes.”

Gorbunov — as we later confirmed in the evening — is a pathological liar, a scoundrel, and a bastard. I am not afraid of such strong words because, first of all, over 26 years of his work in the Moscow election commission, we have repeatedly become convinced that this man personally organizes falsifications. But today we were convinced once again, when the candidates came to him, journalists came, and he ran away from them there, slammed the door, and said: I will not talk to you. I, as the school principal, will sit alone, and you sit in the hallway (he literally suggested this to them) and I will call you in one by one. You understand, he says this to people for whom thousands signed.

A. Navalny: Whoever they nominate, we will try with all our might to defeat that candidate

It is humiliating, but still: one by one — so what? What is so terrible about that? That is, maybe formally it is wrong, but in substance, so what?

In substance, in form, any way you like.

I think that if Lyubov Sobol had been left one-on-one with Mr. Gorbunov in the office...

Then Mr. Gorbunov would not have come out well from it, I think.

They would have come to an agreement.

No, I do not think they would have come to an agreement. And, as Yevgeny Roizman quite rightly said, who was just on the radio, Gorbunov is simply stalling for time. Well, he stalled for time, and so they danced this ritual dance and told Yashin many times: “File complaints, Ilya, appeal every signature.” But Yashin simply documented that all this talk about “dead souls” was a lie. He showed the people who signed for him. They say on video: “We signed, and our signatures have no right to be declared invalid.” And how did it end? With Yashin being told this evening: “Your signatures are fake.” And at the same time I brought you a completely astonishing table. I’ll show it for YouTube, and everyone can find it on the internet. This is a list of self-nominated candidates who have just been registered. All these wonderful people (from the point of view of the Moscow mayor’s office) collected 6 thousand signatures and got registered. You have not heard a single one of these surnames. For example, a certain Pavel Trofimov, working — you see, the position is written there — as a calculator. He works at a school, and his job title is calculator! I do not know what that is. He collected 6 thousand signatures and spent 1,000 rubles on it. Look at these amounts: 1,400...

Which district is this?

I do not even know which district it is, but it is from “Communists of Russia.”

Ah, 1,125 rubles, yes. And what is the source, if I may ask?

This is the official website of the election commission. So that all voters, all listeners understand very well: right now there are two main tricks the Moscow mayor’s office is using. Trick No. 1 — we already talked about it: all United Russia members are self-nominated candidates. And trick No. 2 is that they have two kinds of spoiler candidates: actual United Russia people and, if you look, “Communists of Russia.” A nonexistent, worthless party nominated its own candidate in every district. None of them collected signatures. As we can see from the table, they spent no money on these signatures. But every single one of them got registered. Why? Because the Moscow mayor’s office is primarily afraid of independents — let’s crudely call them democrats. Secondarily, it is afraid of communists. And in every district they placed a spoiler for the Communist Party called “Communists of Russia.” Not one of these spoilers collected signatures. But we both understand: it is impossible to collect 6 thousand signatures if you... Well, here you go — some girl, Marina Kostycheva, from the government of the Voronezh region. She spent 1,400 rubles and collected 6 thousand signatures in Moscow. That cannot happen!

And what are the real costs of collecting them?

No less than a million rubles. A million is the bare minimum. Look again: some temporarily unemployed Bakasheva from “Communists of Russia” spent 15,000 rubles. Notary services to certify signature collectors cost more than that! How could these people, who spent — as we can see — even less than 1,500 rubles, have certified signature sheets? And this is the still-unexplained mystery: why did the Moscow mayor’s office decide to behave so brazenly?

And what are your theories? You know the answer to that question.

I know the answer, and I said it at the very beginning: because they understand they will lose to everyone. But they decided not to play a clever, sophisticated game, but a brazen one, because in these elections they decided to demonstratively show and test how hard and how many times they can spit in people’s faces while those people still stay home and do not react to anything. So they are conducting an experiment.

And why has the time for this experiment come precisely now, in 2019, in this Moscow City Duma campaign?

They are testing what to do in the next campaign — the State Duma election. I think these analytical summaries, these rumors, these forecasts that Putin may change the system of governing the country, head the State Council, or reformat Russia into some kind of parliamentary republic in order to solve the problem that he formally cannot remain president any longer but, of course, wants to remain tsar in Russia — they need to understand whether they can win those State Duma elections. Because, as you see, even gubernatorial elections are now being lost by United Russia. We had, I think, 12 elections in the last cycle. In 4 of them, United Russia candidates lost despite the fact that they technically lost to dummy candidates. They lost to some, excuse me, random guys from the LDPR.

But how can you conduct testing under such initial conditions? That is a distorted result.

That is exactly how they conduct it: can we pull it off if we remove everyone lawlessly, let no one in at all, and shove the communists aside? Even the systemic ones. Today we see news that even communists in those districts where United Russia candidates are especially weak... In one district there is a certain Sabina Tsvetkova — the wife of that fake human rights activist Tsvetkov, whose surname and photo can be seen in every police station. A very weak candidate. And they even removed the communist in that district from the election, although he does not need signatures. Right now they are conducting precisely this kind of experiment: can we throw literally everyone out of the election, leaving only some completely random people? Everyone will see it. It is obvious to any unbiased person that the mayor’s office registers everyone with fake signatures while keeping real candidates out. Will they tolerate it or not? — that is their test.

And what is the answer? What is happening now, over the last 2 days.

A. Navalny: They explained to 100 thousand people that they are second-class people

I am not ready to tolerate it. I urge everyone else...

Well, you are understandable. But you are one of a kind in all of Russia.

I am not alone, and we can see that people went out to Trubnaya today, and yesterday they went out to the Moscow election commission. On the 20th there will already be an authorized rally on Sakharov Avenue. I hope people will come out there too. Besides that, I urge everyone to participate very actively in this very “smart voting” that we came up with precisely because we understand that the mayor’s office will no longer allow real candidates into elections — people like Yashin and Sobol, who could come and win. It will allow only technical candidates. Therefore our “smart voting” system exists so that any candidate against United Russia can win.

Then why do you not support Mikhail Kotov?

Who is that?

He is running in district 45, alongside Yashin and Kasamara.

Excellent! You see — this is just the perfect illustration! Here is a man running in the Central District against Yashin, and you do not even remember his surname. And this man claims he collected 5 thousand signatures — and you say this is Mikhail Kotov! This is Mikhail Konev.

That’s it, I made a mistake.

This is some petty crook who, unfortunately, is supported by the PARNAS party, and they should be very ashamed of it. In fact, one of the reasons Yashin was removed from the election today is the complaint filed by this petty crook Konev. And again, they are telling us to our faces that Yashin, who is head of a municipality and walked the whole district on foot, could not collect signatures — but some crook could.

Konev against Kasamara in Yashin’s absence — that does not work?

That is not quite so — or rather, not so at all. Besides Konev and Kasamara, there are other people in that district. There is a communist, there is someone from A Just Russia.

No, in the context of “smart voting” — I want to hear what Navalny will say.

Look, what Navalny will say... I do not know exactly who will remain there, but most likely I will show you the numbers and say: dear Masha, you see — in previous elections the communists were in second place in this district. Therefore, probably — I assume you do not like communists very much, but in order to destroy United Russia’s monopoly, let’s vote for the communists.

The communists — the Communist Party of the Russian Federation?

The CPRF. “Communists of Russia” is United Russia. Of course, the CPRF. Because the task of “Communists of Russia” is to steal 5–10% from the CPRF. But they cannot win, because they simply cannot.

Summing up the work of your signature collection centers, Volkov said there were two strategies: either they remove all independent candidates, or they register some number of them so that later they can show: look, we registered them. At the current stage of events, do you rule out such a scenario?

If we are honest, it seemed to all of us that strategy No. 2 would happen. The mayor’s office prides itself on some kind of cleverness — that they are such intriguers, manipulators, political technologists. So we expected that, with 20 independent candidates, they would keep all the strong ones out and let all the weaker ones through. Then the democrats and opposition figures would start arguing: whom should we vote for — the weaker democrat or the stronger communist? We expected something like that. But what do we see now? They simply removed absolutely everyone. Even the weakest opposition candidates. Judging by the brazenness of these removals, I do not expect them to reinstate anyone — with one major exception, which we will work on: they will reinstate someone and register them (possibly even all of them) if people take to the streets.

The gathering at Trubnaya and the rally on the 20th...

A. Navalny: — On the 20th. I cannot call for gatherings at Trubnaya, because I...

And we are not calling for them either.

Of course no one is calling for them. I was not at yesterday’s gathering and did not write a word about it anywhere, because you know the peculiarity of my activity: as soon as I say something, they immediately take me from home and lock me up somewhere for 20 days. So I tell everyone: do what the independent candidates are calling on you to do, and on the 20th there is an authorized rally on Sakharov Avenue.

Is this still a struggle for candidates, or is this already the second wave?

A. Navalny: Nothing has changed. The old tricks are the best tricks. “Everything for friends, the law for enemies”

This is already a struggle for my right to nominate candidates. Fine, there are candidates, there are people who signed for them, and there is our common right in principle to have political representation. Not even necessarily to win, but at least to nominate someone for election. What they are telling us now is that, in general, it turns out that we (and in Moscow, the majority — people with opposition views in Moscow are definitely the majority) will never be able to nominate any candidate close to us and our program. It is simply outrageous. Yesterday VTsIOM published a nationwide poll: Putin’s rating is at a record low, United Russia’s rating is at a record low. If their level is at a record low, why can we not run?

Yes, but the same VTsIOM also showed record low (I am just repeating “record,” I do not know how record-breaking it is) interest in the Moscow elections in general.

I think the actions of the Moscow mayor’s office have now raised interest in these elections. Of course interest in them is low. Most Muscovites do not know what the Moscow City Duma is. And the Moscow City Duma has made great efforts to ensure that most Muscovites do not know what kind of body of power it is. It is filled with absolutely loyal deputies. 85% of them are United Russia. Of course, it is one big rubber stamp. These are people who work as Sobyanin’s little slaves. What interest could there be in them? Now, with their actions, it seems to me, they have angered many people.

Look, let’s talk in a bit more detail about the procedure itself. You described it in quite some detail in a critical sense. Is the problem still in the procedure itself, in its essence, or is the problem that a normal procedure is being carried out clumsily? I mean collecting signatures, this filtering of candidates in exactly this form, the way verification is carried out, and so on.

There are several layers here. There is federal law, there is the Constitution. The federal law, in principle, is not written that terribly. It says that a person must leave their address and must leave a signature. And in principle, if it is clear what address the person has... It does not even have to say “bldg.” or “house.” The law does not regulate that. The law says: if it is clear where the person lives — okay, valid signature. Reasonable? Reasonable. The next layer is all sorts of lower-level regulations. That is where it starts: write not “building” but “bldg.” And not “corp.” Write “h.” with a period, not “house.” And if there is no period, it is already declared invalid.

Seriously?

There are many absolutely idiotic rules there. And on the basis of these idiotic rules like “corp.” or “bldg.” people really have been removed from elections. But okay, we understood all this, and all the independent candidates followed these idiotic rules. In fact, all of them collected not 5 thousand at all, but much more. It is just that many signatures were struck out because a signature slightly crossed into another box, into the square, and so on. From the point of view of this formal bureaucratic procedure, they made perfect signatures. What happens next? Then things happen that, in principle, are not regulated by law at all and are simply lawlessness. Here are the signature sheets, a folder of signature sheets. An operator sits there and retypes these signature sheets into their own spreadsheet, a machine-readable spreadsheet, so that the database can then check that spreadsheet automatically. What does the operator do? Just as we observed today in Zhdanov’s case. A person wrote “Leningradsky Prospekt” on the signature sheet. The operator writes “Leninsky Prospekt.”

Human factor.

Human factor can happen with 1 signature, 2 signatures, 10, 25. But we see that for everyone — Sobol, Yashin, and so on — it is hundreds of signatures. And when they come in and, naturally, foam at the mouth and wave all this around saying: “You scoundrels! Look — you are simply entering patronymics incorrectly, deliberately making these mistakes, and then declaring these people dead,” they laugh in their faces and say: “No, everything is fine.” That is first. And second, we see cases like Yankauskas, where they do not even say: “Your signatures are somehow wrong.” They simply slipped a fake payment order into his documents and said: “You transferred some money to the wrong place. These signature sheets (Lord, these miserable pieces of paper worth a thousand rubles) you printed not from the right campaign account, so all your signatures are invalid.”

Wait, let me repeat my question. Is the problem in the procedure, or is the problem that it is being carried out clumsily?

The problem is that crooks and bandits are sitting in the Moscow mayor’s office. Let’s speak frankly: the Moscow City Election Commission is made up of people who are engaged not in organizing elections, but in falsifying elections. And this is not my political statement. Because no one disputes it — even Putin said, and Sobyanin said, and Medvedev said, that in 2011–2012 there were colossal falsifications in Moscow. Who did them? Gorbunov did.

Let me ask differently: in Alexei Navalny’s ideal world, when Alexei Navalny is president of Russia and the whole world, will we collect signatures for Moscow City Duma elections or not?

A. Navalny: It used to be that they did this under the table, stuffing ballots. Now they do it in full view of everyone

When I become president of the world, there will be such unity that elections will not even be needed.

I doubt that.

But if it happens that I occupy one of the leading positions somewhere in politics, we will largely abolish all these signatures. There will be an insignificant number of signatures. There will be an electoral deposit...

How many percent?

To take part in Moscow City Duma elections, it should be necessary to collect 500 signatures, not 5 thousand.

Wait, right now it is 3%.

Quite recently it was 1.5%. What is our task? For you as voters to have a choice. Therefore my task as the state is to ensure that everyone who wants to, who is more or less normal, not crazy, and not people who do not have even 2–3 supporters at all, is on the ballot. And then you sort it out yourselves. But our state is engaged in preventing people from participating in elections.

So when Gorbunov says that only unconditional violations were included in the final protocols, he is lying to us directly, right?

And you are surprised! You are looking at me now and saying: “What, Gorbunov is lying to us?” In 26 years of work in the election commission, Gorbunov has not said a single word of truth. For example, in 2009 (now no one remembers this), the number of stuffed ballots in the Moscow City Duma elections was comparable to the number of real ballots. You can check with any electoral expert, you can look at the documents. These are people who carry out absolutely astonishing falsifications. It used to be that they did this under the table, stuffing ballots. Now they do it right in front of everyone.

Look, for example, there is such a concept. Many say — there is a popular point of view — that, in principle, Alexei Navalny, Alexei Navalny’s team, and other independent candidates do not particularly care about Moscow itself, and that this is a serious stepping stone for later running for the State Duma. That this is the first step toward a major political career. What would you say to that?

That is rather strange reasoning, because I am prohibited from running anywhere at all — district level, federal level, wherever.

That is clear with you. But what about your team?

It is impossible to say that we do not care about Moscow. I live here, I ran for mayor here. And most importantly — on September 8 I will go to the polling station here. I want to take a ballot where there will be some person representing my interests. I think any Muscovite, whatever their views, would like the ballot to offer some kind of choice. So that you can vote for a communist, or for a United Russia candidate — fine — or maybe for a democrat, maybe for a liberal. We want the right to choose. So here I am speaking not only as a politician, but also as a resident of Moscow, and of course I am in absolute fury because Sobyanin and Gorbunov decided for me: these candidates we will not allow through. I repeat: not 1 candidate, not 2, but 20. That is the first thing. And the second — as for the stepping stone: doesn’t politics work exactly like that?

I do not know, I am just asking. Because there is regional politics — benches, kindergartens, bike paths — and there is building popularity for a future political career.

I’ll answer. Here you are, Yashin. Ilya Valeryevich Yashin, who in this sense is quite an ideal candidate for everyone. He headed a municipality, won it completely, defeated United Russia there. And he deals with benches, housing and utilities, social taxis, and twice a week he holds office hours for pensioners. We would like him to move from that level to the Moscow City Duma and focus on city problems. And from that level he could move to the State Duma and there already have full-fledged experience: he has benches, and the city budget, and then federal problems. It seems to me this is an ideal situation. You would want to have politicians like that, right? There are no steps, no escalator in Russia. At the bottom of this ladder sits Sergey Semyonovich Sobyanin and saws it apart. Because first he needs to dismantle the ladder, and then he can go on freely sawing up the Moscow budget, relaying tiles next to your house 5 times in a row.

Will we keep fighting for Yashin?

We will go out to rallies. How else do you fight for Yashin? Yashin, of course, will go to court, will write about the election commission. But it is not only about Yashin. The same thing is happening all over Moscow. By the way, as I understand it, they have now removed one communist who does not need signatures. Closer to the point: I expect they will begin clearing out and removing other communists as well. In that sense, we will have no choice at all. And the only way to fight for all of them is one: to say that we are not ready to tolerate this and to go out into the streets to any rallies. This government understands no other kind of conversation.

Look, Gorbunov says: blackmail and pressure on the Moscow election commission.

Yes, Gorbunov is a crook! What does “blackmail and pressure” mean? Let him register them.

A. Navalny: We will largely abolish all these signatures. There will be an insignificant number of signatures. There will be an electoral deposit

No, there are just words, and those words need to be answered.

Certainly. I am so emotionally agitated because I saw how these people collected signatures. I myself, on this broadcast, on my YouTube channel, and on all social networks, wrote every day for a month: “Bring in signatures.” People brought signatures. It was a huge amount of work. And now they tell us: all these candidates who spent a month killing themselves and collected signatures — their signatures are not real. But some random people are getting registered by the dozens. Someone from the government, the chief accountant of some restaurant, a senior inspector of the Administrative and Technical Inspectorate, a chief specialist of the administrative-technical service — “Communists of Russia” — all of them got registered! Who are all these people? Some temporarily unemployed auntie. And she collected signatures! We are being told that she will participate in the election, while Yashin, Sobol, Zhdanov, Gudkov, and everyone else will not. So it is simply impossible to answer Gorbunov and all the others seriously. They are not even trying to create an illusion. Again, what kind of trick did we expect? That they would register them now and then, closer to the election, remove them. Well, as often happens. They did not even bother to do that! They just said: we will not let them in, and that is that.

Alexei Navalny in the program “Debriefing.” We will return after the news. NEWS

Masha Mayers, Stas Kryuchkov, Alexei Navalny is here with us. Right now 19 thousand people have joined us on YouTube. Our contact details are the same: SMS, Viber, WhatsApp, Telegram +7-922-800-00-65, the Twitter account vyzvon, and the YouTube chat. Ella Pamfilova agrees to meet with independent candidates, but after July 22. What is that?

You will forgive me for criticizing everyone on air. I called that scoundrel a crook, but I will not call Ella Pamfilova that — I will simply call her a hypocrite. She said she would meet, of course, but later. We do not need later. Look at what is happening in St. Petersburg. The whole city is on edge there. We are outraged here by Moscow’s lawlessness — it is even worse in St. Petersburg. There some kind of thugs are physically not letting people into election commissions. Here at least you can submit documents, and then they brazenly refuse you.

Wait, let me quote Znak — here, please, Viktor Minenko: “At a meeting with territorial election commissions on July 12, St. Petersburg election commission chairman Viktor Minenko urged colleagues from municipal election commissions to side with candidates when considering issues of their registration.” And things like that.

And Valentin Gorbunov today on your broadcast called for honest elections. We are already tired of reading their statements. First they physically throw candidates out of the office, then they dust off their hands and say to the camera: “Let’s hold honest elections, let’s all unite, and please, no extremism or radicalism.” And in that sense, Ella Pamfilova is, of course, a disgusting hypocrite. Right now this is her direct duty. We pay her salary so that she goes to St. Petersburg, then comes back and deals here with people who are being kept out of elections, with people who walk the streets shouting: “Let our candidate in!” — including well-known people. You understand, Sobol publishes a video showing that Shirvindt signed for her — his signature is declared invalid. Professor Lukyanova signed for her — her signature was declared invalid. All social networks are packed with people saying: “We actually signed — what right do you have not to recognize our votes?” And Ella Pamfilova is somewhere, either at her dacha or in a hospital, and she has strength only to say: “I will meet after the 22nd.” It will already be too late.

And you do not need that meeting?

I need registration. Actually, I would like everything to proceed according to the law. According to the law there is no need for any meetings, either with Gorbunov or with Pamfilova. According to the law, people gave their signatures, they were registered, and then in the election voters voted for whoever was stronger. That is the ideal situation for me.

But look, for the people in St. Petersburg who are being pushed out of lines — there is no law for them, the law does not work for them. And Galyamina was fined after being held all night in Khamovniki. So on the one hand, there is the law, we are trying to participate in an electoral procedure that is legal. On the other hand, there is a line where we, obviously, one way or another will be walking along the edge.

Listen, the old formula. Nothing has changed. The old tricks are the best tricks. “Everything for friends, the law for enemies.” As this was said several hundred years ago, so it works perfectly in Russia. Friends from “Communists of Russia.” As we can see, a person with the job title “calculator” easily gets registered for elections, while some amazing law applies to Galyamina. Why did she not make it to the meeting with Gorbunov today? Because she was sitting in the police station, where she had spent the night before. She is a deputy in the Timiryazevsky district. We understand perfectly well: a municipal deputy, brought in several people, her associates, in the Timiryazevsky district, works actively there. We understand perfectly well that she has support, she has some signatures. And why should Galyamina spend the night in a police station and be fined 30 thousand rubles? Because she honestly collected signatures and honestly demands her registration.

Tell me, please, this “street democracy” — I mean... All right, let’s omit the word “call.” The appearance of people in the streets.

Civic pressure.

A. Navalny: They are testing what to do in the next campaign — the State Duma election

Yes, for example, that phrase is a very good one. Is that today the only working instrument?

For now, yes. We would like to use other instruments. No one wants to run around the streets, and Sobol, I think, really does not want to go on hunger strike. But what else can we do? Courts do not work. Higher election commissions do not work. Today Gorbunov called, “come to me” — and did not even properly meet with people. None of this works. Sorry for repeating myself. Imagine the despair of a candidate who came, got a signature, then that signature was declared invalid. The person recorded a video and says: “My signature — it is real.” And they still refuse to recognize it as valid. What else can be done?

But despair is not something that sells politically, you understand? I mean on the political stage.

Fine, let’s call it anger.

I am just trying to understand what mechanisms exist.

There is only one mechanism: go out into the street and make demands of this government. We have no courts, no police — nothing. Why was Golunov — your journalist colleague — released? Because people went out into the street. If that had not happened, if there had not been this threat of street pressure, as you put it, nothing would have happened. I would be sitting in prison on the fabricated Kirovles case if people had not gone out into the street. And so on. Our government — and we simply have many years of experience on this subject — can change something and be ready to yield somewhere only if people go out into the street and stand there. Nothing else works. Putin has been in power for 20 years, and in 20 years we have become convinced: nothing else works.

But has this understanding come only now? Why, in order to be convinced that nothing works, did you have to enter this game with cheaters?

This understanding came to me long ago. You see, I work in the Anti-Corruption Foundation. We carry out investigations, we document corruption, we document violations of declaration rules, and so on. There are no investigations. On the contrary, all these criminals persecute us — but the state does not persecute them. So that understanding came to me long ago. I am sure it has now come to a larger number of people. Count them: 20 people were not allowed in. Each collected at least 5 thousand signatures. That is 100 thousand people. They explained to 100 thousand people that they are second-class people. I hope these people now understand that there is no other way, except simply physically going out into the street, to force this government to do anything.

What options does the government have? They are not going to back down.

Why not? Look, Golunov was released. They planted drugs on him. Then they told fairy tales that he had some kind of laboratory at home. I was imprisoned. I had already been sitting in pretrial detention. People came out into the street — they released him. In fact, this government — at the federal level, at Putin’s level — is quite cunning. It always plays this kind of judo. They yield. In Yekaterinburg quite recently people came out, there was direct pressure from the people.

No, there are simply no such figures here to whom they could give such points. You understand, after all Golunov is not Yashin and not Navalny.

I do not quite understand the logic.

Plus, if this is about the 2021 elections, then this is about some kind of federal transformations.

The authorities have many different strategies. They can let through the most active ones — I don’t know, Yashin, Sobol, Zhdanov, Gudkov — and say: “Well, we let the main ones through.” And the protest will dissolve. After all, if 4 people sit in the Moscow City Duma, which has 45 members — let’s be honest — Sobyanin will not lose his majority. They can, on the contrary, let the weaker ones through and beat them in a relatively fair fight — or an unfair one. They can defeat them, try to falsify things and say: “Look, we let your people through, but they lost.” And so on. If they wanted to act in a way that somehow tried to pacify society, tried to flirt with us... When I say “us,” I mean, conventionally, the audience of Echo of Moscow. You are the biggest radio station in the city. Accordingly, we understand that this is quite a large political force. If they were trying somehow to negotiate with this audience or at least deceive it, they would act differently. They decided to insult and humiliate all these people, all of us, directly, in order to understand how far and how deeply they can shove us under the bench while we continue to remain silent.

Tell me, you just started saying that you have been doing this for a long time, that you head the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Was Gorbunov also the subject of your anti-corruption investigations?

Yes, of course. Today you can go and see: when Valentin Pavlovich yesterday said that he was digging potatoes at his dacha and therefore could not meet with candidates (although that is his direct duty — election commissions work without weekends), we, naturally, immediately went and filmed that very dacha. It is worth 60 million rubles. There are half a hectare of land there. And now we also have big questions for Valentin Pavlovich on that score. Besides that, several years ago we documented that he and his wife own a company in Croatia. Real estate is registered to that company. At that time we could not find the real estate, but ownership of the company was proven. And Gorbunov, generally speaking, did not even try to say these were not the right documents. He admitted it. He should have been kicked out of public service. But they started playing this game: everything for friends, the law for enemies. He said that owning shares is not the same as owning assets. Therefore, it means, I remain in public service. He is very important to the Moscow mayor’s office because he carries out these falsifications. Gorbunov, of course, was and remains the subject of our investigations. And in his case we once again proved that he is a crook, corrupt, a bastard. He falsifies elections precisely so that, by receiving huge sums of money, he can invest them, including in his Croatian real estate.

Listen, but he is a long-serving official. He is experienced, he is skillful.

All these crooks and thieves are long-serving. Of course he is skillful. He is one of the most useful officials. A master of his trade. He falsifies every election. He heads the election commission of the most opposition-minded — well, maybe St. Petersburg is still the most opposition-minded city — the largest opposition-minded city.

Yekaterinburg too.

Moscow probably more so. And nevertheless, here in every election United Russia always has an absolute majority. Of course, he is a master. He is simply a master at stealing votes.

Listen, one question. Right now 21 thousand are listening to us — almost 22 thousand on YouTube. Plus the radio broadcast, accordingly. At the same time, one thousand people come to Trubnaya. What is that? A gap between the sympathy your often quite fair speeches evoke and...

A. Navalny: This is the still-unexplained mystery: why did the Moscow mayor’s office decide to behave so brazenly?

As you corrected yourself: often.

I try to be careful. I cannot go all out for you here.

Too bad, really too bad.

I simply have a different profession. So this gap between sympathy and action — is it shrinking now or growing?

I very much hope it will shrink. I very much hope more and more people will participate directly in some kind of street actions. And I very much hope, of course, that hundreds of thousands will participate in this very “smart voting” in order simply to get revenge on United Russia, to do everything possible so that as few United Russia candidates as possible are elected. Of course, what experience do people have? Their experience is that nothing can be changed.

The experience is simply tied to the moment when there is a feeling that it has really become unbearable...

And you do not have that feeling now?

I do not know.

I do.

That is why you go out, while the others sit.

I had had enough many years ago. I entered politics 18 years ago because I had already had enough then. I could not tolerate it. I just hope that this very insulting, demonstratively insulting behavior of the Moscow government will still get many people off the couch. I very much hope that happens.

Can you compare this insulting behavior, its emotional intensity, with what happened in 2011? How do you feel it?

Still, in 2011 the falsifications were recorded. In 2011 people saw it directly on video recordings.

You are showing us that too.

Leninsky — Leningradsky.

Alekseyevna — Alexandrovna.

For now we see that some people were not allowed into the elections. And naturally, the election commissions say: “Nothing has been decided yet.” As Gorbunov said on your broadcast today: “We have not refused anyone yet.” And tomorrow morning he will say: “So far only Yashin has been refused, no one else has been refused.” And gradually he will feed us this bitter pill. Still, let’s put it this way, the emotional force of a video recording where a woman sits in an election commission, as it was in 2011, and directly puts check marks on ballots — that is, of course, a much more powerful thing. Besides that, those were federal elections. Again, there was Medvedev, there was that very “castling.” Federal things grip people more strongly.

Alexei, should the issue of responsibility for these clerks who move check marks around and incorrectly transfer data from handwritten signature sheets into the system be raised?

We just asked Gorbunov that question — he answered me.

Listen, of course it should be raised. These people are committing a serious crime. They should be in prison. And the main Moscow falsifier, Gorbunov, still remains in his post. They even removed Churov.

And is there a falsifier above Gorbunov?

Pamfilova. The presidential administration. The president. The main falsifier in our country is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. All these falsifications are done for him. Everyone else provides the support. Ella Pamfilova plays the role of such a kind aunt for us. And when she was appointed 2 years ago, many people bought into this kind aunt image. Remember: even some of the candidates who are now being kept out of elections. Dima Gudkov — he is being kept out in an absolutely lawless way, absolutely lawlessly. But when Pamfilova was appointed, he wrote columns: what a great Ella Pamfilova! Here in your studio Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, said: “Alexei Navalny, hands off Ella Pamfilova! We lay under tanks together with her in Chechnya, and youth led us on a sabre campaign.” And they sang her praises, saying what a great Ella Pamfilova she was. Already then it was clear that no one but a vile falsifier could occupy this post under Putin. And now we have seen it. But I am upset that this realization came so late.

A. Navalny: None of them collected signatures. But every single one of them got registered. Why?

Will this situation serve to make you unite not in the process, but directly before the start of the campaign?

Unite with whom?

Well, with Gudkov, for example.

But we are uniting. In that sense we worked out the districts with Gudkov perfectly. And Dima did a great job. He also wanted to run in the center, where Sobol is now running.

No, he was campaigning in Khoroshevo-Mnevniki. I just live there, I know. I think last time too.

I am telling you as a direct participant in the negotiations: he was running for the Moscow City Duma in the northwest, then wanted to move to the center. Everything was divided up, and it was said: Gudkov runs there, Sobol runs here. In that sense, on the whole, everything was agreed. It is clear that 100% agreement cannot happen. But at 80% everything was agreed. And all participants in these negotiations were simply not allowed into the elections. Including because they had reached agreements. But as for responsibility — sorry that this was such a long answer to that question — all these people sooner or later must end up in the dock. And in the beautiful Russia of the future we will, of course, abolish statutes of limitations for these crimes. For us this will be like war crimes — crimes against the expression of citizens’ will and crimes against elections.

A few questions from the website about how to block things. Timur Bolshebyakin asks us about the future, about how it will be in the beautiful Russia of the future. Do you want a coalition with the CPRF — at least at the level of “smart voting”? What kind of government will there be when you become president or prime minister? Will there be a place for communists there?

Of course. There will be a place for everyone. I believe that people of any political views should have political representation if there are enough of them. Putin — many people support him. United Russia — someone supports United Russia, after all they do not have zero supporters. Therefore they should have a party, they should participate in elections. If an elected parliament is, let’s say, elected in such a way that it becomes necessary to enter a coalition with the communists, then the winning party should enter a coalition with the communists. There is nothing terrible about that. That is politics. Coalitions are formed precisely for the sake of agreement in society. As for a tactical coalition with communists now, I would have been very glad to see in the press today that the communists themselves said they invite all independents to work together. And in that sense this scheming and brazen policy of Sobyanin’s mayor’s office has led to democrats first uniting, and now we see that the rest of the opposition is also uniting, and democrats will cooperate with communists.

Now let’s try to imagine what awaits us, the voters, first of all, on September 8. What will we see on the ballots and what model of behavior, in your view, is the priority?

On September 8 — attention! — the following awaits you. You go to the “smart voting” website and enter your address. And the system gives you the surname you need to vote for. This will happen directly on September 8. We hope this will also work through a messenger. It is clear that this website will be blocked, but nevertheless we will find a way that when you provide your address, we will give you the surname of whom to vote for in order to maximize the chances of defeating United Russia candidates. Before that, we will have a difficult process in which, from among, let’s say, not the strongest candidates, we will have to choose the strongest one.

How will that happen?

We will look at the results of previous elections. We will look at who won there: A Just Russia or the communists. If one of the independents still makes it to these elections, we will look at how strong a candidate that person can be. Did they participate before, did they not participate? There may be difficult situations. For example, a person we rather like, a person of our views, participates — and an unpleasant communist also participates. But we see that the communist participated before and got 25%. Or his party, the previous communist candidate, got 25%. And in that case, of course, we will vote not for the democrat we like who has no chance, but for the less pleasant communist who has a chance. Well, not necessarily a communist — maybe someone from A Just Russia or an independent. Besides that, there may be a situation where there are some candidates even approved by the mayor’s office. But obviously the mayor’s office gave quotas to Kumin, the head of the CPRF in Moscow participated in the election, younger Zyuganov. Apparently Yabloko was given the district where Yevgeny Bunimovich is running. An excellent candidate, by the way. He seems like a mayor’s office candidate, but at the same time he is an excellent candidate for deputy. In that sense we will vote for him. It will be a difficult process and, of course, during this process people will argue and say that I am proposing to vote for the wrong person.

A. Navalny: We expected some cunning intrigue, some combination... But they simply let no one through

And how many people? How do you do this mechanically?

45 districts. For each district...

No, how does your analytical штаб work?

The analytical headquarters — it is many people who know the history of elections in Moscow well. That is one thing. Secondly, we will simply bring in experts. Those experts who analyze the numbers, those experts who analyze politics itself. In fact, we all know those several people who know the history of Moscow elections well. And their opinion, of course, will be taken into account. Undoubtedly, for each district we will give such a surname that will not always be pleasant, but we will always explain rationally and prove why we propose voting for this person.

Our listener Dmitry Mezentsev complains: “Aren’t we just swapping one bad thing for another this way, because an unpleasant person before the election may become pleasant to the authorities after the election?”

Excellent question! Undoubtedly, that is exactly the authorities’ strategy. They remove independents. We know for sure that they would not buy Yashin, Sobol, Zhdanov, or Gudkov. Therefore they put in some people whom maybe they will buy, maybe intimidate. But we proceed from the fact that the government candidate must be defeated, because the government is behaving this way. Right now we are working against monopoly. We have not yet reached the stage where we can choose good candidates with our program. Right now we are still at the stage of simply fighting the monopoly. We want to destroy United Russia’s monopoly. 85% is too much. They do not deserve 85% in the Moscow City Duma. Their percentage must be reduced, and right now all efforts are directed there. Of course, they will do this, they will later buy off candidates. But nevertheless, looking into the YouTube camera, I will say: our revenge on United Russia for this brazenness must consist in this — let the authorities know that whoever they nominate, we will try with all our might to defeat that candidate. Through a communist, through a member of A Just Russia, through someone else — but let Putin know: after they spat in our faces like this, we will fight their candidates by uniting around someone else.

Tell me, if they really do remove all the interesting ones now — let’s say, interesting to me, I don’t know to whom else — and all that remains there is this gray mass, what is your forecast for turnout in the Moscow elections? Maybe no one will go at all?

Well, still, not quite a gray mass. I do not know how much they will dare to remove all the communists. There are some very capable ones there. In the south of Moscow there is a certain Zhukovsky running — absolutely excellent. He even went to rallies.

Yes, yes. Is he from the communists?

He is running from the communists. In the northeast there is a certain Tsukasov running with CPRF support — an absolutely excellent candidate. In the city center there is Shuvalova — she was at the rally yesterday. She is an incumbent deputy, absolutely wonderful. The mayor’s office, it is true, hates them all. I think they will also try to remove them. The CPRF is offering us several very good candidates. A Just Russia, by the way, too. But I do not think turnout will in any case be more than 21%. Last time turnout was exactly 21.5%. Now, against the background of them removing everyone, it may be even lower. But that, by the way, gives us a chance. Because with low turnout, we come and, with consolidated voting, with this very “smart voting” for a specific person, we can easily outvote United Russia. We only need, Lord, 400 thousand people. You simply enter your address into the system, you are given a surname. If we all vote for that surname, we will wipe out all of United Russia. Another matter is that the mayor’s office will falsify the results. But then observation needs to be organized.

And the observation systems that exist now are not enough? There will also be experiments with electronic voting.

Which, to my great regret, are being so actively lobbied by the editor-in-chief of your radio station.

That is for him, not for us. That office over there — that is for him.

A. Navalny: United Russia understands perfectly well that they will lose to all candidates

Alexei Alexeyevich (I don’t know whether he is here or not), your electronic voting is fraud. But the thing is, these are candidate elections, and therefore observers for these elections can only be provided by the candidates themselves. One of the reasons independents are not allowed through. But we will work with them. That will also be a difficult process. But in fact for every election the whole observation system has to be rebuilt from scratch. The plus is that, of course, there are a lot of trained observers in Moscow. I do not doubt that if we manage to get the documents, we will put a person at every polling station, and not even just one.

Alexei, as the object of opposition, so to speak, what was heard was: “United Russia, United Russia.” Is that directly the whole cause of our country’s troubles today?

United Russia is what the generalized party of Putin is called. The cause of all the troubles in our country is Putin and his regime. That is specifically about a thousand people around him. A hundred families that became the main beneficiaries of this corrupt regime. They do not govern the country with some magic wand. They govern the country through mechanisms. One of the most important mechanisms is the United Russia party. Elections are falsified in the interests of this party. Therefore right now one practically has to fight United Russia.

Alexei, we have 1 minute left, even less. Alexei Navalny and your voters. And we will fall silent.

Dear voters! You deserve to have candidates in these elections. The Moscow mayor’s office, the presidential administration, is removing your candidates, considering you second-class people. Therefore I urge you not to remain silent, to support your candidates, to go out into the streets when they call you, to come out on the 20th to the already approved rally on Sakharov Avenue, and to participate in “smart voting” in order to destroy the monopoly of the party of crooks and thieves.

Thank you very much! This was politician Alexei Navalny on the program “Debriefing.” Masha Mayers and Stas Kryuchkov were with you throughout this hour.