United Russia, get out of here!

Hi, this is Navalny with an explanation of

what’s going on. Please watch

to the end and feel

the importance of this moment. So, there is Russia,

our beloved country, and within Russia

there is Moscow,

our beloved city, the one the whole

of Russia works for. That’s why Moscow’s budget

is enormous: more than 2.5

trillion rubles. That’s a colossal sum

even by global standards.

And for a Russian city, there’s

nothing to compare it to. It’s like, you know,

comparing

a wealthy landowner and a destitute peasant in

bast shoes.

Have a taste.

Don’t turn your nose up at it.

[music]

Krovushka Klovskaya.

So who decides how these wonderful

Moscow

2.5 trillion rubles are spent each year? You

might think: well, obviously, Moscow Mayor Sobyanin. And

you’d be wrong, because they simply

spend the money, but the one that decides how

it is spent is the Moscow City Duma. It

draws up the budget. What’s more, it also

oversees how the budget is spent: whether

it was spent properly, whether the people’s

money was stolen. Because it is the Moscow City Duma

that appoints the Audit and Accounts Chamber

of the city of Moscow. And as you all know very well,

Moscow is not only a fantastically

rich city, but also a fantastically

corrupt one. There is plenty to steal here.

This is where the juiciest pieces are, where all

the country’s money is. That is exactly why the family

of Moscow’s deputy mayor can easily

buy themselves penthouses worth 1.5

billion rubles, and the mayor can give

Larisa Guzeeva an elite 200-square-meter apartment

in exchange for promotion on Instagram.

In Moscow, it is very easy for officials to steal,

first and foremost because the Moscow City Duma

here does nothing but serve the interests

of those who steal.

So, in theory, here’s how it works: there are 45

seats.

Well, some of them go to United

Russia, some to the opposition. Moscow

is, after all, quite an opposition-minded city. I

ran in an election here and got, according to

the official figures, almost 30

percent of the vote. So that means there should be

some number of deputies who

represent the interests of people like you and

me. Grudinin got 12.5 percent

in Moscow, which means a decent

number of seats should go to

the Communists. And then, one way or another,

Zhirinovsky’s party should get some,

A Just Russia should get some. Then the whole

crowd gets together and argues, each one

defending the interests of their voters.

They adopt some kind of compromise

budget. The ruling party supports the mayor,

of course, while the opposition does not

support him and keeps watch to make sure the mayor’s people

don’t steal anything and that everything is done

properly.

You and I benefit from this political

competition. It’s great, because they

keep an eye on one another. Great.

But what happens in real life? Out of 45

seats in the Moscow City Duma,

United Russia has

38—28 of whom are directly members

of the United Russia party, and 10 others

are various subordinates

of Sobyanin—chief doctors and so on.

They call themselves independents, but in one hundred

percent of cases they vote with United

Russia and obey it. Five seats belong to

the Communists, but one deputy left to become

a governor, so 4 seats remain. Right now there is one

seat for the LDPR and one seat for the Rodina party.

Thus, United Russia controls

84 percent of the votes and makes all

the decisions in the main governing body of the largest

and richest city in the country.

The Moscow City Duma is run by two

people: its chairman, Alexei

Shaposhnikov, the former leader of the Young Guard

of United Russia, and only in 2000

was the Russian people able to make

the only correct and conscious

choice,

electing Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin president of Russia, the national

leader of our country. Hooray for Putin.

The deputy chairman is Andrei

Metelsky, the leader of the Moscow

branch of United Russia. They run it

just fantastically. Please take a look,

it’s wonderful—a standard

scene showing what goes on there, and in the

presidium

you will see these two leading

United Russia figures, Shaposhnikov and Metelsky.

Respected Alexei Valeryevich, the board

lit up during the vote:

33 in favor, 3 against—so 36

people.

Count the heads and see how many

are present. I counted 26.

There’s no need for that—for counting we have

a special system in the hall, and I

trust it completely. Then your system

is not working properly, because

use your own eyes and count:

there are 26 people sitting there.

The existing system fully

ensures the Duma’s ability to function. But

you see, how can anyone expect these people

to fight for fair elections

or against corruption, or against

planting drugs on people, if

There are 26 people in the hall.

They say there are 36. The cameras are filming them, and they

understand that this will be shown across the whole country.

But without batting an eye, they say there are 36 people.

The system counts correctly every day.

They write about corruption in Moscow amounting to hundreds of

billions. How many times has this been discussed at

meetings of the Moscow City Duma (Moscow's city parliament)?

Zero times. How many times did they instruct the

Audit and Accounts Chamber to investigate

anything? Zero times. How many times did they raise

the issue that police at rallies in

Moscow are beating people? Zero times. On the contrary, they

pass a budget like this and give

Sobyanin the opportunity to hand out apartments to those

who are especially good at beating people. Why am I

telling you all this political theory?

Because there are elections in September, and I understand

that you're probably sick of hearing about it, but I’ll keep

bugging you anyway. We have

a completely practical task: we must

reduce the percentage controlled by

United Russia.

Yes, of course the elections will be unfair, but this is

Moscow.

Here, there are far more opponents of United Russia

than supporters, and it will be hard for the authorities—

very hard—

to falsify

the results on a large scale. If we

look at the results of the previous

Moscow City Duma elections,

we’ll see that in most districts, all we need

is to add, well,

just

5–10 percent to the opposition candidate for them to win

against the United Russia candidate. And it looks entirely realistic

to take many districts away from United Russia.

In the 2016 federal elections,

United Russia received

here

37 percent. Well then, their fair and lawful

result is that they should control 37

percent of the seats, not 84 percent like

they do now. And don’t tell me this isn’t

possible. More than a million people

will watch this video, and half of them

will be from Moscow. That number of voters

is enough to give one opposition candidate in

each district an additional

10–15 percent. And attention: this is very

important. Right now, without delaying a single

day, you need to give your signatures to independent

candidates running in the elections. In order

to take part, each of them

has to collect several thousand

signatures in Moscow, where in summer everyone

leaves town, where all apartment entrances are locked,

where nobody ever opens the door

to strangers. It’s very difficult, but

the signature collection procedure was actually

designed precisely to keep

independent candidates out of elections.

In the description of this video, there are the addresses of the campaign offices

of the strongest candidates. If they become

deputies, they’ll put an end to the easy life of

United Russia in the Moscow parliament, and

the Moscow city government will finally

learn what parliamentary oversight is

and what opposition means. There are only

a couple of weeks left for collecting signatures.

All you need

is a passport and to be at least

18 years old.

It often happens that you live in one

district but are officially registered in another. So,

for example, I’m registered in Maryina Roshcha, but I live on

Avtozavodskaya.

Of course, I’m too lazy to go to Maryina Roshcha

to look for the candidate there, their campaign office, their

headquarters, and give my signature for them. That’s why

we set up a special single

location in the city center.

We’re making it available to a large number of

independent candidates from all across Moscow.

Even if we don’t support a candidate, or don’t

support them very strongly, we proceed

from the principle that they all

have the right to take part in the elections, and in

fairness, we should help them too.

The address of the signature collection center is

10 Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. It is open

daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The list of candidates is also in the description.

Our plan

right now is, first, to help these

candidates get registered for the election,

give them our signatures, and then identify the strongest

among those who make it onto the ballot in

each of the 45 districts, and for everyone

to vote only for that one person.

That will give them a very strong chance

of winning.

Of course, it’ll be a mixed bag:

independents, Communists, Yabloko members (from the liberal Yabloko party) — there will be

great candidates and less great ones. In some places

the mayor’s office will get scared and won’t allow strong

politicians onto the ballot — that will definitely happen. But

the main thing is: not a single vote for United Russia.

All of us together vote only for one

person in each district.

That is Smart Voting.

And finally,

those of you who don’t live in Moscow are now

saying, “Why the hell did I even

watch this? This has nothing

to do with me.” It does.

And directly so, because first of all, elections

will take place not only in Moscow but also in St. Petersburg

and in 20 other regions, and there too there will be Smart

Voting. And second, in Moscow they spend

your money, and you are interested, at the very

least, in making sure it isn’t simply stolen

the way it is now. So

at least support this

campaign informationally: Smart Voting, not a single

vote for United Russia candidates, or for United Russia candidates

disguised as independents.

Go right now and give your

signature to a good candidate — he really

needs you. Subscribe to our channel — here

they tell the truth.