“For now, we are not using the word ‘boycott’”

After the collapse of the Democratic Coalition, in which you also played a certain role, direct accusations appeared: “Navalny is calling for an election boycott, and that hurts opposition figures who are planning to run.” Are you in favor of a boycott? It’s wrong to accuse me of being against elections. Of all the opposition figures, no one has put more effort into elections than I have in recent years. I took part in the 2011 elections—not as a candidate, but I was deeply involved in the campaign “Vote for any party except United Russia.” I actively supported the election-monitoring movement. I ran in the Moscow mayoral election. The opposition’s most successful campaign in recent years. Well, that’s your assessment. I was also involved in the grand saga of the 2015 regional elections. The whole thing looked like a two-step plan: we go into elections in four regions, win somewhere, strengthen PARNAS’s legal standing, and then in 2016 get into the State Duma and form a faction. And then the plans changed? The situation changed. I believe in acting rationally at any given moment. We can’t do now what we did in 2011. The presidential administration, Volodin, and his whole gang—they spent five years preparing to counter our “Vote for any party except United Russia” campaign. It would be foolish simply to repeat what we did before. Back in 2014, we understood that the 2016 elections would not become a mechanism for changing power, but we hoped they could become a mechanism for creating stress for the authorities. Now we understand that elections are, of course, a moment of vulnerability for the authorities—but not a very great one. Therefore, at this moment elections are not the main point where efforts should be concentrated. Why? Because they solved their problems in advance—not through fraud, as before, but by simply not allowing anyone onto the ballot. That is where our attitude toward these elections comes from. How am I supposed to view these elections if the Progress Party was barred from participating and then liquidated? If I was barred from these elections, and so were a whole lot of people around me? Elections in which I am not allowed to take part are not something I can recognize—as a politician, as a person, or as a citizen. But that does not mean I now have to obstruct everyone else. The End of the Coalition What were the main mistakes made in forming the Democratic Coalition—including by you? The biggest mistake was that back in December 2015 we agreed that not the entire Coalition list would be formed through primaries, and that the top spot would be reserved for Mikhail Kasyanov. Our arms were twisted then: PARNAS proposed that solution one day before the Coalition’s presentation, and I had a choice—either accept it or resign myself to a scandal and an empty presentation that nobody would attend. We had to get through internal debates at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and I had to explain that yes, we had to take the risk because there was no other way to go into the elections. It was a painful compromise. If the entire list had been formed through primaries, would there have been more interest in them? As far back as 2014, people in PARNAS believed it was important to establish that PARNAS was the basis for uniting the opposition, including for the 2016 elections. We accepted that, and we honored that agreement. What mattered to us was that all places on the list be allocated through primaries. The moment we backed away from that point, everything fell apart. As a result, PARNAS now has an independent opposition list, but from the standpoint of competing for voters it looks fairly weak. That’s all. And our electorate is simply not ready to play that game. Even before the Coalition fell apart, it became clear that voter interest in the primaries was very weak. We tried to turn the situation around and ensure that the entire list would be formed through primaries. We were told no—no other options would be accepted. And all the participants in the primaries lost interest in them. No one really campaigned for participation, either. By the way, who in PARNAS was calling on people to take part in the primaries? No one. How am I supposed to view these elections if the Progress Party was barred from participating and then liquidated? If I was barred from these elections, and so were a whole lot of people around me? Elections in which I am not allowed to take part are not something I can recognize—as a politician, as a person, or as a citizen. A senior figure in PARNAS was quoted as saying: Navalny, taking advantage of the fact that he has many fans on the internet, simply tried to take over the party. I’ve heard that explanation too: “They’re strong online, so that’s why they’re for primaries. But we’re against them, because offline there are people who support us—real voters.” Show me where exactly, offline, these real supporters are. There are no supporters. The Hunger for Victory If there had been an opportunity to take part in the elections, how would you have defined the goal? I am prepared to take part in an election campaign if the result is getting into the Duma. That is the main thing. There has to be a real victory. The failure of the Coalition, just like the failure in the 2015 elections in Kostroma, would have been my personal failure—the kind the Kremlin very much wanted to see. Someday I may have the opportunity to run in an election, and I’ll run and get two percent. But those will be my two percent. I don’t want to get someone else’s. The return of single-member districts gave exactly the kind of chance to create stress for the authorities that you mentioned earlier. Don’t you think you focused too much on bargaining over places on the party list—which, frankly, had little chance of getting through under any scenario—and missed that opportunity? Excellent question. But in fact I was focused not on the list, not on the names, but on the principle by which it was formed. I honestly don’t care who exactly is on that list. What matters is that it be capable of winning seats. Politics is a question of leadership. And I wanted the list to be formed through leadership and to be formed by the people. That way we would have aligned the interests of the party and the interests of the voters. That’s the first point. Second, a party-list campaign is precisely the arena of real political struggle. We do not feel it would be morally right to call on people to come out and vote and to convince them that participating in these elections is useful or creates any kind of problem for the authorities. I’m not sure of that. Why? Because it is a direct clash of ideologies. We are against United Russia. Single-member candidates really can create stress for the authorities, but in the party-list campaign the authorities have cleared everything out and competently solved all their problems in advance. Who, from a political point of view, even discusses single-member candidates? Who is interested in them? So from the standpoint of political struggle, I was interested in the party list. Single-member districts are an extremely important issue. We had plans for them, but the “petal-shaped” districting made victory for an opposition candidate practically impossible in any federal subject except Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moscow and St. Petersburg account for 23 seats—that’s not insignificant. In reality, between those two cities there are only five districts where victory is genuinely possible. But even that is not insignificant. And the key issue here is dividing the districts between Yabloko and PARNAS. I have spent quite a lot of effort—and continue to do so—trying to persuade Yabloko and PARNAS to stay out of each other’s districts and put forward the strongest candidates. So negotiations with Yabloko are continuing? Negotiations are continuing with everyone. I’m trying to persuade everyone to divide up the districts; it’s an extremely important matter. And how does Grigory Alexeyevich Yavlinsky speak with you? Grigory Alexeyevich spoke with me very well. For the first time in many years, we had a very heartfelt conversation and apologized to each other for various past grievances. Did he explain why it was necessary to throw you out of the party? That’s obvious enough as it is. It’s a feature of the Yabloko party—there has to be a single source of political will there. So when I started challenging Yavlinsky’s leadership and criticizing him, they simply kicked me out. So you’ve become something like a negotiator between PARNAS and Yabloko? Not exactly. It is very important work, and I am doing it, but here I’m someone who decides nothing. I am not the one nominating candidates, and there is nothing I can do except urge them at least not to harm one another, making use of the support I do have. In Search of a Strategy Are you prepared to explicitly endorse any of the participants during the campaign? We still have not formulated an answer to that question for ourselves (this is a collective decision, not just my personal one). We will boycott the elections; we will not recognize them. But whether we will call for a boycott or actively support someone—I don’t know yet. What I do know is that the strategy “Vote for any party against United Russia” is effectively impossible. Over the last three years, the authorities have managed to make both the Communists and A Just Russia even worse than United Russia. I will not be able to convince an urban voter that they should vote for Communists who go into the election carrying portraits of Stalin. That is practically impossible. And if I call on people to vote for A Just Russia, Elena Mizulina will immediately be thrown back in my face. We do not feel it would be morally right to call on people to come out and vote and to convince them that participating in these elections is useful or creates any kind of problem for the authorities. I’m not sure of that. I will call on people to come out and do something only if I myself am prepared to come out. When we called on people to vote for any party except United Russia, everyone loved us except United Russia. If we call for a boycott, everyone dislikes us, while United Russia likes it because they need low turnout. It’s a difficult decision, and we understand that this time we do not have a strategy that would win us more supporters. The systemic parties fear a boycott, and the Kremlin fears a boycott too. They want us to call on everyone to come out and vote; they want the opposition to be legally and honestly crushed. And you cleverly outplayed them by arranging the opposition’s defeat before the election. No. That’s not the point. It’s simply that at the moment we do not see how these elections will become a problem for the authorities. But for now we are not using the word “boycott.” We will formulate a specific electoral tactic based on how things look as the time approaches.