Text version
0:00
Another reason why I, as a presidential candidate,
0:03
am better than Putin, and why our
0:05
campaign headquarters
0:07
is better than Putin’s campaign headquarters. The money
0:10
The first financial reports have been published, and
0:13
we saw that over the January holidays
0:15
candidate Putin received the maximum
0:18
possible amount of money into his
0:20
campaign account:
0:21
400 million rubles. How many do you think
0:24
came from private individuals—that is,
0:27
people who support their
0:29
candidate and transfer their own personal
0:31
money to support him? 22 people.
0:35
With two transfers: one for 30,000 rubles and
0:38
one for 934 rubles. All
0:40
the other hundreds of millions were transferred
0:43
to Putin by the United Russia party and 22
0:46
murky, opaque foundations.
0:52
So you see what’s going on. Now compare that
0:56
with me. On December 13, 2016, I announced
1:00
that I was running in the election and immediately said that
1:03
I had no other source of funding besides your
1:05
donations.
1:06
And I received your support,
1:08
for which thank you very much. Over 13 months, you
1:11
transferred 275 million rubles, and
1:15
the number of people who supported our
1:17
campaign was 145,500 people—that is,
1:21
that is,
1:22
sorry, 72,000 times more than
1:26
Putin. Our median donation
1:28
came to 500 rubles. And compare, too,
1:31
the overall transparency and clarity
1:33
of the financing of my election campaign
1:35
and Putin’s. With me, it’s simple:
1:37
you got your paycheck, then took
1:40
a few hundred rubles out of your own pocket
1:42
and sent them to the account of my
1:45
campaign manager.
1:47
He donated that money to the legal entity
1:50
through
1:50
which we signed contracts,
1:53
paid salaries, and so on. And you can all
1:55
see exactly how that money was spent.
1:58
We opened and maintained 84 headquarters across the
2:01
country. We distributed millions of
2:03
campaign materials. I held a huge
2:06
number of meetings.
2:07
We printed and handed out
2:10
370,000 of those red signs with the
2:12
exclamation mark alone.
2:13
They were constantly seizing things from us,
2:16
taking away equipment and newspapers, and we bought
2:19
new ones. We published a detailed report on
2:22
our spending, and anyone can
2:25
look at it.
2:25
Our main expenses were salaries,
2:29
office rent, campaign materials, and taxes
2:31
that we paid to the state. Everything is
2:34
completely clear, as it should be for a
2:37
normal candidate who is obliged
2:40
to report back to the people
2:42
on how effectively he spent their
2:44
money. Now let’s look at Putin.
2:47
He hadn’t even managed to open a headquarters yet, and
2:49
in shopping malls across the country there were
2:52
some people collecting signatures.
2:53
Who were they? Who was paying them? Out of what money? It’s
2:57
not clear. And those foundations that transferred
3:00
400 million rubles to him—where did they
3:02
get
3:03
that money? Where is the actual person
3:06
who took it out of their own pocket? We
3:09
don’t know that for sure. But I assure you:
3:12
it’s you. Because we actually
3:14
know how these
3:16
regional support foundations for United
3:19
Russia work. The same housing and utilities enterprises
3:21
various regional коммунэнерго and electricity retailers
3:25
transfer there money that was taken from you
3:28
in the form of your utility payments. But I
3:30
strongly doubt that you consented
3:34
to paying for Putin’s election campaign
3:36
with your electricity bill. And in a
3:40
normal system, a candidate like
3:42
Putin would never withstand competition,
3:45
because he cannot even properly
3:47
answer the question of where he got the money for
3:50
his election campaign. “That’s none of your
3:53
business”—that’s all. And the fact that I can
3:56
answer that question became one of the
4:00
main reasons why I was not allowed onto the
4:02
ballot. They want all candidates to be
4:05
some kind of shady characters, obscure
4:08
people with unclear money. But those who have
4:11
145 and a
4:13
half thousand donors behind them—they really
4:15
don’t like that at all. Back in Soviet times
4:18
I worked my guts out for years in
4:19
industry, and as for you, while I haven’t seen that
4:21
everything’s been torn apart, they’re spinning around collecting money
4:24
illegally, and ordinary unfortunate people
4:26
can’t even find out. Anyway, they were terribly afraid of
4:29
our election campaign, and now
4:32
they are terribly afraid of our voters’ strike
4:35
(a boycott campaign). Compare again: Putin’s
4:38
election funds are pumped up
4:40
through corrupt means, yet at the same time
4:42
they function perfectly well—the state protects them. But our fund, through which we
4:45
ran our campaign over the past year, and which is honestly
4:48
filled with your money—what is happening
4:51
to it?
4:54
Let me tell you.
4:54
Putin was so frightened by our announcement
4:57
that the campaign headquarters
5:00
would turn into a strike headquarters that he urgently
5:02
created a special
5:05
task force to inspect our fund, made up of
5:07
the Justice Ministry, the election commission, the FSB (Russian security service), the Interior Ministry, financial
5:13
monitoring, the Department of National
5:16
Policy, the Committee for Public Relations,
5:19
Roskomnadzor (the state media and communications regulator), and the tax service. Wow. I think
5:23
that if ISIS created a fund called
5:26
“Organization of Bombings, Terrorist Attacks, and
5:30
Rap Battles,” fewer officials would be inspecting it
5:32
than are inspecting us. So what do you
5:35
think all these crooks want now?
5:37
Of course, they are demanding our immediate
5:40
liquidation.
5:41
They want to dismantle our regional
5:43
network, to make sure we cannot
5:45
rent premises, pay salaries,
5:48
or order printed materials. These bastards
5:51
are afraid of our strike. Will they succeed?
5:54
No. Let all the judges, officials, the Ministry of Justice,
5:58
and the registration authorities decide that we
6:01
must be banned — we don't give a damn about them.
6:04
But how can they ban me? How can they
6:07
ban you — a normal, living
6:10
person with certain views on
6:12
life? This is our country, and there are millions of us here.
6:15
They will get tired of banning us. We wanted to run
6:19
in the elections, but they won't let us.
6:21
Then we will campaign against
6:24
these elections: a strike. We are not going to
6:28
the polling stations, and every day
6:30
we will call on everyone around us
6:32
not to go to the polling stations and not
6:35
to believe that Putin's reappointment can be
6:39
called
6:40
an election. I want to say once again that
6:43
the structure that you and I created,
6:46
spending these 275 million rubles (about $4.8 million at the time), is now
6:50
going to work on organizing the voters' strike
6:53
despite any obstacles.
6:55
As long as you support us, we will not
6:58
stop our work. We spent your money honestly and effectively
7:01
before, so I
7:04
believe that I now have every right
7:06
to ask you to help finance
7:09
this strike as well.
7:11
Take a few hundred rubles (a few dollars) out of your pocket
7:14
and send them to the fight against those
7:16
who are depriving you of the right to choose. No one will help us
7:20
except ourselves.
7:21
A reminder: on January 28 there will be a nationwide
7:25
protest action, and more than
7:27
80 cities are already taking part. In the video description
7:31
there is a link to the list — find your city and
7:34
take part. And now, in the description of each of our
7:37
videos, there will be a special
7:39
link to a flyer template that any
7:43
of you can print on a home or
7:45
office printer and put up in your
7:47
building entrance, your school, your university,
7:50
your office — anywhere you can. If they tear it down,
7:54
that's okay — you can put it up again.
7:57
It's not hard. To win, you need to work
8:00
every day. Subscribe to our channel —
8:03
this is where the truth is told.