You did not lose, because this is not an election

Hi. Many of you are upset by the election results and

are saying: how could this happen, we lost again, nobody came to vote,

and there isn’t a single normal deputy in the State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament).

But I want to say this: there’s no need to be upset, and you

didn’t lose, because no other results

were possible in principle.

This can’t even be called an election.

In a real election, the result can vary, and it affects

the direction the country moves in, but here—let’s

honestly admit it—from the very beginning it was obvious that

the procedure was designed in such a way as to keep

everything exactly as it is.

United Russia has the majority, and the Communist Party, LDPR, and A Just Russia are all

singing backup for it.

And to achieve this, they didn’t even need to rely on fraud,

although of course there was fraud, but on a much simpler

method.

The Kremlin, Putin, the authorities— they simply did not allow

normal parties onto the ballot.

That’s why people didn’t come out to vote.

That’s why voter turnout was the lowest in the entire

history of these elections.

Some will say to this: well, why? After all, people could have

voted for Yabloko or PARNAS.

They could have—there are good people in those parties—but

it makes absolutely no sense, and that’s not just my assumption,

it’s the result of many years of practical experience.

Yabloko, for example, last cleared the 5 percent threshold

in 1999.

After that, they did nothing but lose.

In 2003 they got 4%, in 2007 they got 1.5%,

and in 2011 they got 3%.

Look, people aren’t stupid.

If they see that a party with this name and this

leader has done nothing but lose for 16 years, then they will never

vote for it.

You won’t convince them anymore, it’s impossible.

There has never been a single example in history of a party

losing like this for years and then winning without changing

its name and its leader.

Look, this is exactly how they discussed on television the defeat of the

democrats in 2003.

This whole discussion was happening 13 years ago, and nothing has

changed.

At the same time, there are very many people with democratic views in Russia,

and in any major city they make up no less than 25%.

After all, I myself won nearly 30% in the Moscow mayoral election

in the end.

These people badly need a party that would represent

their interests—a new party.

But this, in turn, is also understood very well in the Kremlin,

which is why they do not allow a new democratic

party to appear on the ballot.

That is precisely why our Party of Progress was illegally

dissolved, and I personally have been barred from taking part

in elections, despite the fact that I won against Putin’s

government in the European Court of Human Rights.

That is why the majority did not go out to vote.

The official turnout was 47%, but if we remove the anomalous voting figures

from Chechnya, Bashkortostan, Mordovia, and other regions

where the results are simply made up, then we see that the real turnout was

36.5%.

Voters understood perfectly well that formally there were many parties,

but the ones they actually support and that have a real chance of getting in

were not there.

By the way, this applies not only to democratic

and liberal parties.

The same is true of Russian nationalists.

Their parties have been banned and dissolved, their leaders have been imprisoned,

and they are told to vote for LDPR instead.

That is why nationalists, too, mostly stayed away from these elections.

They mostly did not take part.

To sum up: 1.

You did not lose, and in fact you were never even in the game, because

your party simply is not allowed to take part in the elections.

2.

We need to finally stop confusing elections with the

voting procedure, because voting itself may be

fair, but if candidates are not allowed to stand in the election itself,

it is meaningless.

3.

A strategy for winning elections can be based exclusively

on allowing all candidates and parties onto the ballot, including

the Party of Progress, myself, and people like me.

That is what we must demand, rather than taking part in a game

where the Kremlin hands us a party and says, “Well, this one is sort of

democratic—rally around it.”

And as for the current Duma, it cannot be recognized as legitimate, and we demand

new elections.

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