A recording of Alexei Navalny’s historic speech at a meeting of the initiative group in Moscow on December 25, 2017, where he was officially nominated as a presidential candidate. The event marked the culmination of his large-scale nationwide campaign, which energized the regions and seriously alarmed the Kremlin. Alexei openly declares that he is ready to defeat Vladimir Putin and, in the event of the Central Election Commission’s predictable refusal to register him, calls for a “voters’ strike.” The officials, of course, lost their nerve and barred him from the election, but this campaign changed Russian politics forever by bringing together hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
Text version
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my own arm actually started to hurt physically
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when I heard that. Well, let’s hold them up a little longer
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the mandates a bit longer, just a bit longer, you can
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switch hands. Let’s show our support
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my first campaign promise as a
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nominated candidate is that I will definitely
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simplify this procedure. In the beautiful Russia of the future
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we’ll nominate candidates even more easily
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and even vote online
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[applause]
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[music]
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[applause]
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some of you were at my
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speeches in the regions and cities of Russia
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some watched them online, and
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just about all of you were nearly driven
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crazy by the videos you saw from my
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speeches just now, and so you
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have probably noticed that very often
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at the end of a speech in some city I
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ask: please tell me, do I have the right
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to be a candidate from Vladivostok?
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Please tell me, do I have the right to be
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a candidate from Kaliningrad in Moscow?
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I still haven’t managed to hold a large
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rally. You know that the Kremlin considers it
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very dangerous, and every attempt I make
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to hold a rally in Moscow ends with
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me going away on a short-term
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vacation for two or three weeks. Still,
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there are enough people gathered here now
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that this can effectively
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be considered a rally. There are so many people here
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that we have been able to nominate a candidate for
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president, and you have already voted
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but I would still like this
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to be said out loud: please tell me, do I have
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the right to call myself the candidate from
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Moscow?
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thank you so much, guys, and today with
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great joy and pride I can
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declare that thanks to you, and thanks to
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the wonderful, amazing people all across
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the country who made this possible, I stand
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here as a presidential candidate from the whole
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country, from all of Russia
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[applause]
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there are 84 days left until the election, and it may
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be that other candidates, to their surprise,
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having discovered that they are candidates, are planning
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to begin—only planning to begin—their trips and
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meetings with people, and they worry whether, if they have
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support, anyone will come to
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a meeting in Novokuznetsk or Samara
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whether they’ll manage to open a headquarters. But I, we
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already have the answers to these
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questions. We are already doing this together, and having personally
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spoken literally with tens of thousands
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of people across the country, I want to say clearly now
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and plainly: we are ready to win this
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election. We are ready, and we will win this election
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I say this without any irony. We have
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seen over this past year that there is no
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mass support for Putin’s government anywhere
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the farther from Moscow, the less
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support there is, even taking into account
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the administrative machine, even with the
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endless lies on television, still
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they have no support at all. There is only
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gloom and emptiness, and so all of this
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you know, it’s like a tumbleweed
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rolling along with one phrase that has grown very tiresome to us
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a phrase:
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“But after all, there simply are no other
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real candidates besides Putin.” And that
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is something we have already changed together. There is another
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real candidate. He was nominated in
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Serebryany Bor, on Beach No. 3
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[applause]
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we are going into this election in order to
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win, not in order to campaign
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although we are the only ones doing that, not
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in order simply to open people’s
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eyes, although we are the only ones who are not afraid
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to tell the truth, not in order to
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focus on giving
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people hope and drawing them into
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political activity, although we are the only ones who
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have attracted nearly 200,000 volunteers across
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the country and brought to rallies people
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who had never even
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been interested in politics, not in order
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to receive state funding, not in order
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to become more famous, but
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to win. After all, this has turned into
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such a strange novelty over 18 years
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of the political system’s degradation
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that no one any longer believes that people take part in elections
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in order to win. But we do
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we are different
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we are going in order to win, to change
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the government
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to form a government, to work for
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the citizens so that they become more prosperous
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so that life is better, so that its quality
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improves, so that at last there appear some
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prospects in the lives of tens of millions
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of people. That is exactly what the country needs now, that is what
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voters need. We know how to
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do it. We have a positive program
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it is the best program of all those
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presented in this election. We
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will fight for victory. I am confident that
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we can win
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despite the enormous disparity in
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resources and access to the media
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because in our country there are honest and
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brave people, and most importantly, in our
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country there is truth. It is simply no longer possible
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to deny it
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yesterday, sparing no effort, telling myself to endure
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“Alexei, this is a candidate’s job,” I watched
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the congress of United Russia
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and candidate Putin delivered his new
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key campaign promise: we
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Russia will join the top five largest
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economies in the world.
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A good thing, a great idea.
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But here’s the thing, exactly:
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Back in 2011, he gave us the very same
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loud and grand promise: we will enter
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the top five largest economies in the world. And we did enter—
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or rather, they tried so hard that the goal only became even
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more distant, even though every opportunity was there. After all,
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during the first half of Putin’s presidential term,
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oil prices were
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fantastic, and in the second half simply
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high. And that is the truth that
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people across the country feel and understand:
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everyone realizes that with this
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government there are no prospects and cannot be any
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breakthroughs. At best, we are
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simply standing still and slowly
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falling behind the rest of the world. It is guaranteed that
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if these guys remain in
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power, it will mean another lost 6
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years?
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Does anyone here want to lose another 6
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years?
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And no one in the country wants that. Yesterday Putin
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said that Russia has a humiliatingly high
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level of poverty and destitution, and it makes you
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want to say: excuse me, who exactly
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are you talking to right now? Wasn’t it you who, in your
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18 years in power, took from these poor people
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oil, gas, and metals worth trillions of
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dollars,
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sold them abroad, and repaid them
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by turning the poor into the destitute? That was you.
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You did that, Vladimir Vladimirovich.
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It was you, Vladimir Putin, who turned our
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country into a source of personal enrichment for
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yourself, your family, and your friends.
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That is why you should no longer be
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president. You are a bad president.
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You have no positive program. You do not
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know how to govern the country, and in this
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election we are challenging you and intend to
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win.
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[applause]
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Those very people in the Kremlin
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understand all this perfectly well too, and they know that
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they have no serious support,
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of course. But they are cunning people, and they do not
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want to lose the tremendous opportunities for
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enrichment that
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corruption gives them. So, as we see it, their
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strategy is very simple:
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to make absolutely sure they do not lose,
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when it comes to the election, they must make sure that Navalny
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does not take part in the election. There is
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nothing new in that for us, really. That is exactly what
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the whole country has been told for a year by
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the Central Election Commission, whose representatives
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have kindly joined us here today. I address
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them and say: don’t worry, you are in complete
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safety here. And our answer is obvious.
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Our answer is based simply on common
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sense. We say that it is impossible
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to recognize as legitimate an election campaign in
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which the main
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competitor—the only candidate
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who is actually campaigning—has not been allowed to run. Can we
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recognize this as an election?
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As a real election?
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Do we want to recognize this as an election? We do not.
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We do not recognize it, but we will not step aside.
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We will campaign so that as
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many people in the country as possible do not recognize these
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elections, and do not recognize the government that emerges
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from them either. This will be an
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all-Russian voters’ strike.
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Elect us—or just try to keep
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us off the ballot, and we will organize a strike.
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And of course they will tell us:
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of course, those very
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candidates who have done nothing
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for the last four years will turn to
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us and say: but guys, if you do not go
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to the election, then you are basically the couch
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party—so they will tell us, without getting up from
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the couch and with no desire to get up from it.
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And we are candidates in an election who
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were allowed to run. Yes, we openly say that we do not
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expect to win and are not fighting for victory,
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but we want to use the opportunities of the
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election to campaign
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against the authorities and say on various
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TV shows various important and bold things.
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Reasonable? Fine, reasonable. We are not against it.
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It is just a pity that you only decided to
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start saying this now. And if it is really
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so important, if this is the main goal, then carry it out.
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But when you do that and fulfill
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your super-mission, then five days before the
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election you will need to do what?
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Withdraw your candidacies in protest.
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The election is not real. The main candidate was not
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allowed to run. Say whatever you want, and do not
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take part in this shameful, indecent
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procedure of pre-programmed voting.
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Disrupt the election, and if it is not real,
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force the Kremlin to announce a new election—but
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this time register all candidates.
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That would be fair, and it would be in the interests of the
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country.
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One way or another, one way or another, we treat
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this election
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as a struggle for our future, for our
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country, and we will not stop. We, together with
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you, are still the central players in this
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campaign, the central players in politics, however much
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they may try to push us out.
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But look: the Central Election Commission has already said that the main thing
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for them now is turnout. Why? Because
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they are afraid of our strike. We will
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keep fighting, because I know that our struggle
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is needed, it is awaited, people place their hopes in it. Who else
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besides us can a teacher hope in—
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a teacher earning less than the real
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subsistence minimum, or a doctor who
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is forced to say to a patient the words:
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I’m sorry.
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Please come with your own bandages.
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A programmer who understands that in any
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other country, for the same work, he
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would earn three times as much money.
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A local police officer who has given up hope
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of getting an apartment; a political prisoner
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who understands that he will be released only
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when the government changes.
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A businessman crushed by taxes and
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endless attempts to take his business away—they
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have no one to rely on except us. They
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are us—people
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who have come together in order to make
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their lives better and their country better, and
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we will achieve it.
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I thank all of you for my—this is a tremendous
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trust—to be your candidate
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and represent your interests.
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I promise you that I will not let you down. We
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together will turn our
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—well—into a beautiful Russia of the future.
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[music]