Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny. Well then, let's
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talk about what we ended up with after
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these 15 months since the moment when
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I announced that I would take part in this election.
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Putin got scared and barred me from running.
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After that, you and I called for
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a voters' strike and a boycott of these
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elections. The voting was the day before yesterday, and yesterday
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almost 100 percent of the ballots were counted.
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So now we have the numbers, and the most
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important question is this:
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was the voters' strike effective? And my
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answer is, of course, yes. And here you
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ask me: how can that be, Alexei, when in
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the last election
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turnout was 65 percent, while this
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time it was 67.5 percent—
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that is, higher. Explain that to us.
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How can you call that a success?
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I'll explain. First, our strike was
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successful because it turned out to matter more than
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the election itself. That was the main
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political confrontation. It wasn't Putin
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competing with the puppets he
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had put forward himself—that interested no one at all.
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But you and I predicted many
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months ago what the percentage
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result of the vote would be. It couldn't have been
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any different: Putin would get between 73 and 76
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percent—that was my forecast. They would announce to you
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that Putin had become president and received
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something like 73 percent, 74 percent—more than 70 percent.
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So what was the real political struggle? You and I
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said: this is not an election, and we do not
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recognize it. We will not go, and we will
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campaign against it among everyone around us. And
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Putin said to us: oh really? Then I will drag people there
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by their ears, by their arms, by their legs—everyone.
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I'll scare all the state employees and all the students. I will
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hold school referendums,
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parent meetings on Sundays, so that
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children would bring their parents to the polling stations. Under
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threat of dismissal, all
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employees of state enterprises will go vote,
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utility workers, postal workers—basically
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everyone we can force, we will force.
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And the whole country watched as in the last
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months people really were being dragged to the polls
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by the ears—from military personnel to priests (Russian Orthodox clergy),
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everyone was made to come.
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"I would like to call on
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everyone, including Orthodox believers,
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who at times may have had reservations
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about the elections themselves, to take
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part in the election. We absolutely must
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take part in order to make
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our contribution
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to shaping the future of our country." From
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every loudspeaker, the message was: come to
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the election. On top of that, the entire state machine
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came down on the headquarters of our strike. We had
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arrests and seizures every day—
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searches, confiscations, arrests. They were all focused
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on those who had become
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involved in it at that moment, or who were here in
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those places where they were setting things up—and only
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this was what mattered:
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the outcome of the confrontation between you and me and
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the Kremlin.
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Second, now let's look at the numbers.
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How did they—so big, so powerful, so
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strong—manage to defeat us, so
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small and weak? And right away
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a question arises:
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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, why did you
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eat several million people? No, I'm
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serious—I'm not joking. Look:
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in the 2012 presidential election,
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the voter rolls listed 110
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million people. After that,
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Crimea was annexed, adding 1.8 million
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voters.
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Plus, according to official data, Russia
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granted citizenship to at least 600,000
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adult people—mostly
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migrants, our neighbors from Central Asia and
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Ukraine. Plus,
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every year, in every major
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speech, Putin tells us that
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Russia's population is growing
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thanks to his wise policies, that our
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demographic programs
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have proven their effectiveness, and that we
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will continue them.
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"We managed to reverse the negative
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demographic trends,
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we managed to smooth out the effects of two
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very severe demographic slumps that overlapped
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one another.
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"Our demographic policy has proven
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its effectiveness." So that means that on
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March 18, the voter rolls should have contained
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at least 112
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million people, and most likely more,
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since the population was supposedly growing. And what do we
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see in the final protocol of the Central
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Election Commission? 109 million people—that is,
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one million fewer than there were in the previous
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presidential election. So where are the Crimeans?
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Where are the migrants? Where is the population
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growth?
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So either Putin literally ate all
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those people, or our dear little Russia
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is dying out at record speed, or
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the Central Election Commission falsified this figure in order
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to reduce the number of
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voters and thereby increase turnout.
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Third: fraud and ballot stuffing. I could
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show you these videos for a long time—
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all of YouTube is full of them.
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But you and I sent observers to
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the North Caucasus, even to Chechnya, and there
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we saw everything. Here's a typical situation:
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polling station No. 427 in the city of Grozny—there are
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our observers there, and turnout is 34
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percent of voters in total. But polling station
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No. 428, right nearby—there is no
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observer from us there, and turnout is
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96.4 percent, and across the whole country, we
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deployed more than 33,000 observers,
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and they simply sat there and counted. And so we
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can see that in Tatarstan, the real turnout
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as actually counted was 60 percent, while on
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paper it was 74. In Mordovia, the real turnout
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was 53 percent, but on paper it was 78.
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In Dagestan, through real
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observers, we counted 39 percent, while on paper
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it was 87.4. For the first time in the country’s history,
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it was completely unclear where as many as 6
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million people suddenly appeared who wanted
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to vote somewhere other than their place of registration
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instead. You remember, we conducted
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an experiment
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and showed that this system
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allows one person to vote
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many times.
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The Central Election Commission, of course, denied it,
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but after the election, candidate Grudinin even
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admitted that Navalny had been right, and they
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recorded the same thing. Unfortunately,
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Navalny was right, and voting
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two or three times is possible, and we have such
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examples in the Moscow region.
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I repeat: the vote count, and indeed the entire
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election procedure, was dishonest.
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And what are these 6 million
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virtual souls? That is 5 percent of the total
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number of voters, and
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of those who voted, it is a full 8
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percent. A colossal figure, that’s all.
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Take away what was obviously stuffed in, and you
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will see that our strike was quite
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successful: millions of people, on principle,
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refused to go to the polls because they
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did not recognize them, and Putin was once again forced
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to falsify the results, because in a fair contest
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he cannot stand against us. But most importantly,
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what we have now, which we did not have
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15 months ago, is each other. During this time,
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we have created a living, powerful, and
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unified political network across the entire country,
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with more than 80 branches and tens of thousands of people
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working in it.
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We deployed observers—not just
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more than all the other
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presidential candidates combined, but
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10 times more than all of them put together,
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the presidential candidates.
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And we did this under conditions of
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pressure and intimidation, under conditions
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of no funding. After all, you and I
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raise the money ourselves, without oligarchs
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and without state budget funds. They do not
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recognize us, they push us out, they call us
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the non-systemic opposition, but even so, we
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are the biggest political force
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in the country. No one should be confused or deceived
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by this 76 percent for
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Putin. It does not mean that Putin is very
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popular. It means only that
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Russia is, unfortunately, a poor, lagging, and
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degrading country, and in all such
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countries you will see presidents
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with approval ratings even higher than
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Putin’s. Almost the entire former Soviet Union is
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like that, all of Africa is like that—wherever you
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look, some kind of crook is sitting in power,
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but that crook of a leader gets 90
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percent in elections and stays in power for 20 years.
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Look, in the Samara region right now,
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Putin got 76 percent. And there was once
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a governor, Merkushkin, a deranged
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crazy old man—we made an investigation about him—
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and he was getting
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91 percent there. So what, are we now
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supposed to recognize Merkushkin as
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Russia’s national leader, the most
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popular politician of our time? Of course
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not. He is simply a crook, a thief, and a falsifier.
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He was removed from office, and now
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no one even remembers him anymore. And with
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Putin it is exactly the same: people simply do not
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see an alternative. For years, the TV propaganda machine
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has been washing their brains:
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only Putin, only Putin, only Putin.
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Without Putin, the whole country falls apart.
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In any case, Putin has a champion-level
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approval rating, and I must say quite openly,
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like a patriarch
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who is called upon to speak the truth, that
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an enormous role in correcting this
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distortion in our history was played personally by
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him. But they believe it, because their
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only source of information is
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television. Over these 15 months, you and I
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have grown stronger, there are more of us, and we
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have learned to solve complex, large-scale
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tasks. These elections, in essence, were
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just one episode in our shared struggle—
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our struggle for a normal state where
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people can live and work the way they live and
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work in developed countries. And only we
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can stand up to this Koschei (an evil, deathless villain from Slavic folklore)
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who is dragging us into poverty, who
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is turning Russia into a Third World country
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simply in order to stay in power,
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steal, and receive this very
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phony percentage.
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[music]
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I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who
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took part in our campaign in any way,
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who campaigned, supported us, spread the word
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on social media,
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donated money, or worked as an observer.
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You are amazing, and you are the best people in this country. But I
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am not saying goodbye, because we will not
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stop our work for even a minute.
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From elections to rallies, from investigations
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to court cases, we will do everything
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to turn our country into the Beautiful
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Russia of the Future.