How Can We Defeat United Russia

Hi, this is Navalny, and now I’m going to tell you

how we’re going to beat

United Russia in elections. No, this is not

a joke video — it’s a video about our new

project, with the help of which we

really will be able to start defeating

United Russia in elections — but only if, of course,

we act smart. Please watch

until the end, think it over, and

join us.

This is very important. I’m warning you right away:

while you’re watching, several times you’ll

think, “My God, how boring this is.” But at

those moments, don’t you dare turn the video off.

Watch it through to the end, and then

we’ll be able to upset Putin too.

[music]

So, every year in this country there are

hundreds of elections at various levels, and almost

always United Russia wins them.

And yet, as you can see, this party is

quite unpopular. Even Putin, in

elections, ran as an independent — he was

not nominated by his favorite party. Nevertheless,

a United Russia candidate, or its

disguised candidate calling himself

an independent, always wins. Fine,

maybe in a village — but no, they win in

Moscow, in St. Petersburg, and in

Novosibirsk too.

That is, in places where there are lots of

educated people who actively

use the internet. Why does this happen?

Well, there’s a very

simple bit of math behind it. Look:

a typical United Russia candidate in regional

elections in a large city gets between 35

and 45 percent. Against the United Russia candidate,

the majority of voters cast their ballots for other candidates —

55 percent or 65

percent. But those votes

are split among the so-called

systemic opposition: some go

to the Communist, some to Zhirinovsky’s party,

A Just Russia gets some,

Yabloko gets a little, someone else gets a little — and your

interests in the local parliament are once again

represented by a United Russia member, even though you know for sure

that most people in your

district

hate United Russia.

Hearing every voice is our duty.

United Russia.

And of course the obvious

solution comes to mind:

why doesn’t the opposition unite,

reach an agreement, and divide

the districts among themselves?

I mean, say your city has 20 districts:

in 10, everyone backs the Communist; in 5, they back

A Just Russia; in 3, LDPR; and in 2,

Yabloko. Makes sense — and then we easily

defeat United Russia, and it doesn’t get

a single seat. But in

practice, of course, this is impossible.

For many years this has been

the ruling party’s main tool in

elections: splitting the electorate among

several opposition parties that are, overall,

under control. And no matter how much you and I

try to persuade or beg

Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, Mironov, or

Yavlinsky — “please, just divide

up the districts” — they will never do it.

They simply won’t be allowed to. Their parties

will be shut down if they start

making deals with one another. And in

the next election in your city, I

guarantee you’ll see the same thing again: you’ve got

20 districts, and the CPRF will nominate candidates in all 20,

A Just Russia in all 20, LDPR in all 20,

and Yabloko in all 20. In the end, 100 percent

of the seats will go to United Russia.

Because they have this kind of guaranteed

minimum vote share — no less than thirty-

five percent, almost without fail —

because they have television on their side,

administrative resources, money, and

simply, in the end, fraud. And in this situation, you and I

feel

terribly foolish. You can campaign as much as you like

against Putin, you can call on people

all you want — of course, you and I will increase

significantly the total number

of votes that go to the opposition

overall. But the votes will still

be split, and the winner will still be

the United Russia candidate, and our vote once again will have

no value. So what can we do

in this situation, if the parties and their leaders can’t

reach an agreement among themselves to divide

the districts?

Then you and I can make that agreement ourselves.

We need to act smart and

vote in such a way that our

votes first and foremost

break United Russia’s monopoly, and only

secondarily

reflect our personal ideological

preferences. And at this point, of course, you’ve

rolled your eyes, waved your hand at the screen,

and said, “What nonsense. It’s impossible

to listen to this. It’s utopian. So many people could never

agree among themselves.”

But I’m telling you it is possible, and we will do

it if we try. And to convince you,

I have both concrete examples and

the math.

First, exactly what I’m proposing

right now is exactly what happened in the most recent

elections in four regions where

United Russia candidates lost — except

it happened spontaneously. In the first

round, people went and voted for any

candidate at all — the main thing was to vote against

the United Russia candidate.

And in the second round, voters realized that

whether or not we like the Communist or the candidate from

LDPR

most often we don’t like them, but if we want to

defeat a United Russia candidate

then we need to go and vote smart

that is, based on who came in second place, but

that is, for the strongest of the

opposition candidates

United Russia lost; specifically in

Primorye, they had to falsify

the election and remove the candidate, but even so

nevertheless, when United Russia lost there

because people organized

consolidated voting for one

opposition candidate—just spontaneously like that

it works because in

gubernatorial elections

there is a second round, but most often there is no second round in

elections, and that’s why we need to

agree in advance—the math

is on our side too. Look, our

next major election is the election of

deputies to the Moscow City Duma

let’s look at the results of the last

vote for this body so that we don’t

consider my

proposal only in theory

but evaluate it using real numbers. In

the Moscow City Duma, forty-five deputies were elected

of them, the Communists won 5 districts, one went to

the Rodina party, 1 to LDPR, and 38 to United Russia

an absolute majority—they pass

whatever laws they want, control all the committees, and

this is Moscow

at the same time, more than 50 percent

was received by the United Russia candidate only

in 16 districts; in the others, United Russia candidates

won with 38 percent, 40

percent, 43, or even 28

percent. That means that, in theory, in those districts

the majority of people came out and voted

against United Russia, but its

candidate still won. That’s how the electoral

math works. Now let’s imagine

that you and I, relying on polling

and the results of previous elections, simply

agree and start voting for

the strongest candidate. Most often

it’s easy to identify them—they have already

run before, came in second, or

are running an active campaign. How

hard would it really be for us

to agree in order to defeat United Russia candidates

it wouldn’t be hard. We only need to bring to the polls

just an additional 3 percent

of new voters, and among those who have already

voted against United Russia, we need

to persuade one third to vote

smart—that is, according to our plan

to consolidate around one

candidate. That is more than realistic. I

understand that you all hate math

I don’t like it myself. I understand that you’ve long

wanted to turn this video off because

it’s hard to take in by ear, but once

again, this is incredibly important, so listen

to me—I need to convince you

because for us to do this together

and if I can convince you, then we will start

beating United Russia. Specific

examples: let’s take two specific districts

in southeast Moscow, a United Russia candidate won there

with 40 percent, and second place went to

a Communist with 26

if only a small part of us

stops being picky and saying,

“no, we’re not going to vote for

the Communists,”

then we’ll crush United Russia. Take

northern Moscow

a United Russia candidate wins with 36

percent, and a Yabloko candidate is in second place with

23 percent. So if

we don’t run around here waving party

flags, but understand: over there they voted

for the Communists, so here we’ll vote

for Yabloko

because that candidate is the strongest, then here we

will knock out the United Russia candidate

and there are many such examples. We will get

a majority

if we vote smart. We are

launching a project that is

called Smart Voting. It is a project

for fighting United Russia’s monopoly. We

understand all the difficulties and all the doubts

many of you do not believe in

elections at all, and you have your arguments. Many of

you want to vote only for your

favorite party, but I maintain that until

we start acting

smartly, we will achieve no success

United Russia and the Kremlin are very cunning

vile

and sophisticated people, so we need to be

smarter

in every situation, acting based on

the circumstances

for example, it’s clear how they will

counter this

system of Smart Voting: they will simply

not allow that very

number-two candidate onto the ballot, just as

happened, in fact, in Primorye

in some places the candidates are better, in others they are

quite unpleasant; in some places there are single-member

districts, in others multi-member ones; in some places there is one

round of voting, in others two rounds

most people do not want

to figure all this out, so we will

figure it out for you and conduct

both analysis and polling. I promise that

setting aside ideological preferences, we

will find and recommend to you, wherever you live,

the candidate who, by voting for them,

will weaken United Russia

and fight its monopoly. And then you say to me

“Navalny, you’ve changed your tune on the fly

and you’re messing with our heads—you used to say…”

"Don't go vote"—that's what you're saying now.

Go to the polls—we'll campaign

against these fake elections and

persuade people not to take part in them. Well,

guys, honestly, that's more or less what I'm telling you.

Because elections differ, situations differ,

and there are many methods of struggle. We have to

do everything.

We have to go to rallies and boycott

elections when they're a complete sham, and

take part in them when we can

make things worse for United Russia. What needs

to be done in practice? We bring together people

who are ready to vote together, strategically.

As I already said, our goal is not

to persuade

50 percent of voters to join us.

We need a much smaller

number of people—but they all have to

vote the same way. We have a website where

you need to register and become

a participant in Smart Voting. You

tell us the address where you live, and we

determine which

district you're in, who the candidates are, and before each

election we tell you, on the basis of

polling, previous elections, and other

factors, who is the best person to vote for against

United Russia. This won't be a quick

process.

It will be a long campaign. I will still be

coming to you with calls to register on

this website.

But I assure you: if you're still interested

in going to vote, and you want your

vote to actually matter, then you need to vote

smartly.

the way our system suggests. Simply

going to the polls is now losing all

meaning if you haven't coordinated with everyone

else. Register, vote

smartly, subscribe to our channel,

they tell the truth here.