Press briefing: the first steps of the Democratic Coalition

Hello, thank you very much for coming.

Our Democratic Coalition, created

only recently, already includes

six parties and several

public associations, and today we have

gathered to say a few words

about the very specific

steps our coalition is taking to achieve

our first and entirely clear goal,

namely, to give political

representation to the enormous

number of citizens who share

our ideals and convictions, who believe

that Russia can develop as

a normal European state, and

who are not satisfied that Russia

is now effectively in the position of a servant

to a corrupt regime, and

these people are currently not represented

anywhere at all. Unfortunately, we see that

decent deputies are literally

few and far between, persecuted few, both in the federal

organs of government, in the

State Duma, and only a handful in

the regional legislative assemblies. We

declare that we are going into

the State Duma with a single list based

on RPR-PARNAS, and our first

practical steps are entirely

tangible: millions of our

supporters across the country will join us. We call on

people to join us. We are going into the elections, and we

announce that we are organizing six

election campaigns in three regions:

the Novosibirsk Region,

the Kostroma Region, and the Kaluga Region,

as well as elections in the cities

that are the capitals of these regions,

where the legislatures are also formed, in part,

through party lists. These

regions were selected so that they

would reflect the diversity of our

country. Novosibirsk is, above all,

a center of our country's scientific potential.

Kostroma is a region that has traditionally

been considered economically depressed, although

the only reason for that condition

is simply incompetent leadership. And

the Kaluga Region is the place where

until recently there was a major bet on

large-scale industry, and which is now experiencing

all the problems associated with the crisis

in the automotive industry in particular.

And why are we confident that our

Democratic Coalition, this time in the

elections, will not repeat all the mistakes

made before, and will truly receive

support and will gain

political representation?

Because this time we are firmly

determined to eliminate that

real gap that has always existed

between political parties and

grassroots activists, between the real

voter. All of our candidate lists

will be built on a competitive

basis through procedures similar to

primaries. These will not be the kind of fake primaries used by United

Russia (the ruling political party), but real primaries, and we want

to make sure that every

person who enters the voting booth

and marks their ballot knows perfectly

well that they are voting not for people

chosen by some

Moscow politicians, but for those who were

selected in their own region by their own people. And we

truly want, in this way, to be

able to assure everyone that the best people will be

included in the election

lists. To conclude my brief

remarks, I simply want to draw

attention to one thing, to say that we

know this for certain. We simply

know it: opinion polls

show that there is a huge

number of people who simply

need there finally to be

a Democratic Coalition, a democratic

party that overcomes the barriers and

for the first time in the past 13 years is

represented in the State Duma.

In particular, we also understand very well

that many of these people are disappointed

because in recent years they have been

told only one thing: that all of this is

meaningless, that it's impossible to get anywhere,

impossible to win, and even if you do

vote for these people who

today call themselves opposition figures, tomorrow

they will change colors and support the authorities. Well,

we will prove to everyone that this is not so. We

will do everything to win the support

of these people and, relying on them, together with

them, build a new Russia. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I now give the floor to the secretary

of the Federal Political Council of the RPR

PARNAS party, which will be the party on the basis

of which we will run: Konstantin Lyublin.

Thank you, thank you, Alexei. I would like

to focus on several substantive

issues in the platform with which the coalition will go

into the regional elections. Of course,

it is primarily regional, but in one way

or another the agenda will be mixed,

since a number of systemic issues that

exist in the regions are connected with

the federal

level. Here they are

listed. Excuse me, could we have another

slide—the first one.

So, the main thing we are going

into these elections with is the idea

that

representatives of our coalition, even if

there are only a few of them in regional parliaments,

will be able to solve people's real

problems. Therefore, the main slogan, as we

see it, is: the coalition, or RPR-PARNAS, is on

on your side or on the side of the people, we

will discuss this in more detail in the

near future. But the whole point of our

participation in these elections comes down precisely to

this, and the example of Boris Nemtsov,

who not long ago took part in the elections in

Yaroslavl, vividly demonstrates that even

one person, if he works in the

legislative assembly, if he is an expert,

if he is a professional, if he wants

to act, can turn

the situation in a region upside down. You know how

Boris fought for citizens' rights in

the Yaroslavl Region, how he ensured

the fight against corruption, above all in the area

of procurement of expensive medicines,

and, as is well known, one of the vice

governors was even subjected to

criminal prosecution over these facts.

Therefore, the whole purpose with which we are going into

these elections is to be on the side of the people,

to represent their interests and to ensure

that people feel there is

a political force that represents

their interests not virtually, not just in words, but

in practice. Next, please.

The next slide, yes.

So, the main political theme is

federalism and local self-government,

which have been destroyed in our country

today, and as we go out to

people during the election campaign, we must explain this to them and seek

to ensure that the very establishment of the institution of

local self-government and federalism

is the guarantee that all the problems

people face locally will be resolved, and will be

resolved by their own authorities, by the people themselves, and under

their control. Therefore, the working slogans are:

"Where the people are, there must also be money and powers," and

the second slogan is: "Against the vertical of

power, for the power of people on the ground." And

finally, on combining the federal and

regional agendas in our

campaign: of course, there are some urgent

current issues, such as the ongoing wildfires,

or, as was very successfully done here, the issue

of the cancellation of suburban trains. These are all

urgent current

topics.

Yes, but it seems to me that it is very important that

when we address people's problems at the

local level, whether we are talking about the system of

education or healthcare,

we explain

to people that there are systemic

institutional problems at the

federal level, on the resolution of which

depends

for example,

healthcare. The healthcare reform has not worked;

it turned out not to be properly aligned

financially between the federal and

regional levels, and we must

explain to people that until

institutional decisions are made at the

federal level, the problem of

healthcare locally cannot be

resolved. And second, as Alexei has already

mentioned, there is the situation in the region...

It was possible to attract substantial investment to the region,

including foreign investment in the auto industry, but we

must explain to local people that

completely economically unjustified

political decisions by the authorities at the

federal level in the sphere of foreign policy

led to the creation of

a man-made crisis that has

directly affected the residents of

the Kaluga Region, because there the

problem of unemployment is extremely acute,

since all these industrial enterprises there

in the region are closing, and all this

this

highly qualified workforce now

needs to be employed somewhere, and we

must clearly convey to people that this is

the result of the federal authorities' policies.

Thus, the combination of federal and

local issues will give us the opportunity

to win the trust of citizens locally, and we

will certainly find people who will be

capable of, first, approaching things professionally

and expertly when dealing with specific

issues, and who will be willing to do everything necessary

to represent the interests of people on the ground.

Thank you, and let me give the floor

to the next speaker. This is Vladimir

Milov, the leader and head

of Democratic Choice. Vladimir,

please. Thank you, Konstantin. I will share a few thoughts

on the substance of the agenda, because it is

very important.

First of all,

people respond to very concrete,

pragmatic ideas that actually

reflect the pressing needs

of voters in specific regions.

First, of course, above all,

it is the fight against monopolism and clan-based rule.

Take Novosibirsk and Kaluga, for example.

These regions are far apart

geographically, but the situation there is very similar.

There in Kaluga, for example, Governor

Artamonov has been in office since time immemorial, first as

the first deputy...

a kind of regional mini-Brezhnev (a reference to Leonid Brezhnev, the long-serving Soviet leader),

and naturally everything has been built entirely around him.

All local businesses are tied to his inner circle,

and naturally everything has been cleared of

even basic competition. A similar

situation exists in Novosibirsk, where Governor

Gorodetsky has only recently taken office, but before that

he served three full terms as mayor, and before that

he was also first deputy there, and so on. In other words,

it is all the same faces

who have truly shut down social

and economic mobility, the opportunities for

competition, planting their monopoly everywhere.

We will fight for political turnover instead of clan rule.

We will fight to bring a breath of fresh air

into regional and local

politics, so that the floodgates are opened for

normal competition. Of course, we will also

fight for a redistribution of tax revenues

from the federal center to the regions

and to municipalities. You know that today

both the regions and municipal governments in our country

have been robbed as a result of harsh

fiscal centralization, which for more than 10 years

has been carried out.

And that, essentially, is one of the ideas.

Please understand us correctly: there are still many

substantive issues we need to discuss further. Yes, but

what we and our colleagues in the party

will be proposing to our coalition

partners is simple: any faction, or

even just a single deputy in a regional legislative assembly

who gets elected should immediately submit

a proposal to introduce

to the State Duma, on behalf of

the regional legislature, amendments to

the Budget Code. We will simply draft them

specifically—yes—so that taxes are returned to

the regions and to municipalities.

That immediately makes local political debate

much more compelling, in a way,

because it will instantly become clear which of

the parties in power do not actually want

to return the excessively extracted taxes to the

region. Of course, we will also propose a broad

anti-crisis agenda of our own, and in fact

for example, if you look at

regional budgets, there is plenty there

that can be cut—for example, enormous, completely

unsustainable spending on supporting

media outlets, whose only real purpose is this:

these local media outlets—just read them—they

are basically worthless; for the most part, they

are engaged in praising governors,

mayors, and ruling officials from United

Russia. There are also huge expenditures on all kinds of

unnecessary economic megaprojects funded from

the budget. We propose reallocating

this money to support socially

vulnerable workers who

are being laid off as a result of, for example,

businesses collapsing because of the crisis—

a crisis created by the authorities, created by

United Russia. We propose sharply

reducing the pressure—simply freeing

small and medium-sized businesses from all kinds of pressure, burdens,

shutdowns, and so on. Small and medium-sized

businesses are, unfortunately, exactly what

regional authorities are actively targeting. We want

to give small businesses a chance to live

and breathe. We will have many such

substantive points. I did not put together

slides, because I think we still need

to refine them further before bringing them

to completion. But we want to show that we

have a substantive agenda. We have

something meaningful to present to people, specifically on local

issues that concern residents

of these particular regions. So I am

confident that our substantive program will be

a rich one, and I now give the floor to

Leonid Volkov, a member of the party’s Central

Council.

of Progress. Good afternoon, and a few words about

political tactics. After three

presentations on political strategy, we

already have a fairly clear agenda, agreed

among our coalition

partners, for how exactly we

will put together the lists that

will be able to perform successfully in these three regions

in the elections.

Why are we confident that we can

count on success not only in

Moscow, not only in the very largest cities?

Novosibirsk is a large city; Kaluga

and Kostroma are not as large, yet we can

still perform successfully. The strategy has already

been discussed: it is a combination of the federal

and regional agendas, with an emphasis, of course,

on specific regional problems. This also includes, in terms of tactics,

the tactic of

forming a people’s

list. What matters greatly to us, first of all, is

to identify

people who are independent, well-known, and influential

in their regions—people whom voters are ready

to support. And second, perhaps even more importantly,

people for whom activists

are ready to work, for whom activists are ready

to drop all their own affairs over the summer

and go volunteer—hand out leaflets, stand

in pickets, inform people, and so on. We, in

general, want

to combine the experience of what are probably the two

most successful

major opposition projects of recent

years, taking the best from that experience. This is

the experience of the 2013 Moscow mayoral campaign,

built first and foremost on

broad volunteer involvement. We know

that there, in large cities, especially in

Novosibirsk, but also to a significant extent in

Kaluga and Kostroma, we will find quite

a lot of people who, together with us,

will create that kind of momentum, create

political

pressure and a presence in the streets, and will be able

to tell other city residents—people just like them—

about our list. And we

will also adopt the best

from the experience of the Coordination Council elections.

Remember all those debates, the political

compass, that whole vivid pre-election

story that helped, in fact,

bring out some new faces and show

that there are actually many substantive, serious people

who share our ideas—very many of them.

There were many of them then at the federal level,

and there are many in every region as well. The nomination of

candidates by the voters themselves will be

The key idea behind our primaries is active

substantive programming in the form of debates

and everything else, unlike the way it is done by

United Russia at its own events. And of course

then there will be a vote, which will take place roughly

in mid-June. We will begin immediately after

the May holidays; they will last a month. And

by mid-June we will move on to

the vote to form the list. Why

this

list and this campaign have prospects, and it

can count on strong results

This is

an example of fresh polling data from

one of the regions, Novosibirsk

and we are continuing to study the other two intensively

as well. We will have data soon too

Here is an example: 91% consider corruption

one of the most pressing problems, which

means our agenda fits the region’s expectations

quite well. And just as we did this

in the Moscow elections

we will be able to do the same in

Novosibirsk, Kostroma, and Kaluga

We know how to explain to voters

the connection between every pothole in the road

and corruption cases involving the local authorities and

the federal authorities, and at the same time the political field is

actually completely empty

where we can simply find our

voter and bring them to the polls

through an active campaign. Nearly 60% are hearing

about the upcoming elections for the first time, and 30% even

of those who have heard

still have no idea at all

whom they will vote for. So, aside from

the fact that we will of course compete for

the electorate of other parties, we have nearly

three-quarters of the region’s voters who so far

have not been reached at all, and with whom

we will work. We are ready to do this

we know how to do it, we will run a vivid campaign

and achieve a strong result. Thank you

very much, friends. If there are any questions, we

are ready to answer them

Please. Rey

How ready are the leaders of those parties

that joined the coalition to fight

for victory?

Well, let Vladimir answer for himself

As I already said, the people’s list—any

Muscovites, even federal-level figures, those who

want to be vote-pullers, and those who do not

want to be—

there is one people’s-list primary. Even if

you are some ultra-super Muscovite who

won an Oscar and, I don’t know, heads

a federal party, only through

the primaries. My colleagues will add more, but for now

we are not planning and do not see much

point in sending Moscow teams into these

cities, and I am sure that cities

as strong and independent as Novosibirsk

would of course not be happy about that at all. We

have people on the ground—not with us, but there are

people locally who can head

such lists. Vladimir

Just a very brief point: this

does not exclude party leaders from taking part in

the election campaign, that is

It is absolutely obvious that both Alexei

Navalny and Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir

Milov will all take an active part in

the campaign, travel to the relevant

regions, meet with

people, and promote ideas

this

In some cases, Moscow leaders may also

run for office. But my prediction is that not this

year. The specifics are simply such that in these

regions there are their own promising

regional politicians; they know what

to do, and it is important to give them room. We

for example, in our party, have a simple

principle with colleagues: you run where you live. I

ran twice for deputy

of the Moscow City Duma in my district of Moscow, where I

have lived for more than 30 years. Yes, both times I

was barred from the election, but I will run

again next time, specifically in

next year for the State Duma

in a single-member district. I do not think that

this year we should expect any major

vote-puller nominations from our coalition

Again, I agree with my colleagues that

the lineup will be determined by the primaries. But

my prediction is that it will mostly be

local politicians. I want to add

that the practice of using vote-pullers is not about

us at all. Nemtsov headed the PARNAS list in

Yaroslavl, but he was not a vote-puller; he

headed it not in order to hand over the mandate, but

in order to then sit in the Yaroslavl Duma

and work like hell. Each of the

Moscow leaders of the coalition will assess for themselves

their readiness to work in the same way

in Siberia, Kostroma, or Kaluga; if they

feel that readiness in themselves, they will go

and take part in the primary, if all goes well

As for the participation of Moscow leaders

they will participate. As for me, I do not know

how long I will still have the ability

to travel, to leave Moscow at all. You

know that I have that problem. But

everyone will go to Novosibirsk, to Kaluga, to

Kostroma, into courtyards and neighborhoods, shake hands

and meet people, as one is supposed to do in

a real election campaign, that is

we will move away from the format where

the regions are left to fend for themselves and forgotten during the campaign

Everyone will go, and everyone will provide the necessary

help, all that is needed. Next question

please

Regarding the court hearing: if you are

affected tomorrow or in the future, how will that affect things?

Some other person will be standing here instead of me

the remaining three

the remaining members of the coalition

will continue working as before, and

my physical inability to take part

somewhere, I am sure, it will not hurt; my colleagues

will be able to do everything. We, of course, understand

that the level will be more serious

of resistance, precisely because

Answering the first part of the question, there is every

chance; for us it is important to overcome these

barriers; for us it is important to show that

for the first time in 13 years, a coalition has emerged and

started clearing the barriers and gaining

political representation. You

may know that today

the head of the Novosibirsk branch

of RPR-PARNAS appealed to the Investigative Committee in connection with

statements containing direct threats to his life. He

has recordings of those statements. They

tried to burn his car literally this

night, so we understand perfectly well that

the resistance will come along

administrative lines, along the lines of

what everyone understands: there is a huge

number of voters who are unrepresented,

a huge number of people who, on all

issues, are dissatisfied with what is happening,

who understand that Russia should

develop along a different path. Who

represents their interests? Show me even

one party or one deputy who

directly says: I support a European

path of development for Russia, I support democracy,

independent courts, honest media. Even here,

those who formally belong to the opposition

on these three most important basic

points make all sorts of

reservations; we do not. There are many people

who do not want anyone to make

reservations, and we are ready to rely on these people.

These people exist, and I am confident in our success.

Next question.

Please, I

will answer. It is not actually such a difficult

question.

The issue is simply in

which regions have regional

campaigns. We examined all these regions quite

carefully from a political

and sociological point of view; we looked at

their

electoral support for United Russia,

for opposition parties, at the cost

of running a campaign, distance from Moscow,

at the political culture, so to speak,

how much it is

um, accepted or not accepted

to falsify elections. In Russia, unfortunately, this is

very important to take into

account, as well as how many strong

local leaders, activists, people

and potential candidates we have there. And finally, another

last important factor is what

percentage of the population is urban, and how much

the regional capital accounts for a substantial share

of the region’s population. Well, so to speak,

it is clear why—because, so to speak,

we want to run a vivid, compact,

low-cost campaign within cities; in

some regions we simply

would not have enough strength and resources. Well,

if you apply these criteria and

carry out these elementary

calculations, then in fact

anyone who understands even a little about

Russian electoral politics would

have arrived at the same

list. We do not know of any such setbacks so far.

But we do have positive experience

with fundraising in the Moscow mayoral election, and we

are confident that even taking into account what we

see—the authorities are constantly trying to

cut off fundraising methods connected

with electronic money and so on—we

know that cases are being opened against

activists. We are confident that these campaigns

can be financed simply through

money from ordinary people. I just wanted to add

to why these regions were chosen:

because they are very different. It is important that

the ideological, political, and

technological approaches that we test

in this campaign will be applied in

the 2016 elections. These regions

are very different: in Kaluga, you can

bring election observers from Moscow; to

Novosibirsk, you cannot bring anyone from Moscow.

Kaluga is industry;

Kostroma is now a depressed

region, absolutely; Novosibirsk is an academic/scientific

hub with science towns; again, Kostroma is completely different.

These are different regions in which there will be

different campaigns, different amounts of money,

and different levels of difficulty. Therefore, we will be able

to work through all the technologies that

we will later be able to apply across the country, everywhere

from Vladivostok to the Moscow Region.

Next question.

Please, I wanted to ask you about

attention to social issues. Specifically,

how exactly are you going to address this topic?

And, more specifically,

there is now a discussion about the pension

age, about raising it, and so on. Is there

some position on this—how will you

speak on it?

Well, it is obvious that social

issues in regional elections

will occupy, uh, one of the central

places, because it is at the local level that people encounter

this sphere first and foremost. The two main

areas are healthcare and

education. Obviously, they will

be at the center of attention, and it is obvious

that the reform now underway, launched at full

speed,

the healthcare reform, has stalled and

has been reduced to so-called optimization

of the budget-funded network. People are dissatisfied; people

are justifiably complaining about the situation that has developed.

the situation, because the quality of services

in healthcare provided at

the state's expense has sharply—well, if not

declined, then at the very least it is not improving

roughly the same situation exists in the field of

education, so there are also many

nuances here that rise to the broader public

federal

agenda. The issue of the retirement age and

pension reform is absolutely

federal in nature; there is no

regional

specificity here. The situation with the pension system

concerns all citizens regardless of

which regions they live in. We

have a firm position here that

the funded component should

remain. But the federal authorities have made such a mess of it

that

it requires an entirely separate discussion

on this topic. For now, I would prefer not to

start it. Mikhail, an important question. With your permission,

colleagues, I'll give a somewhat more detailed answer.

Point one: first of all, throughout our entire

budget system, both at the federal

level and the regional level, there is a problem of

this kind of bloated appendage that

has built up over the past 10-plus years. These are

completely unnecessary expenditures, above all on

the bureaucracy

supporting all sorts of state companies close to officials

and flashy pet projects—that is,

essentially, this is money thrown away

that often produces no return. And third,

these various tricks of theirs, like

supporting state media that

lie to everyone about how good they are and how

wonderfully they do everything. As for

this appendage, the recipe is very simple:

cut it to hell. There is a great deal there

that, with our expertise

and our experience, we can competently

propose cutting without any

consequences. Those funds, plus the funds

that we hope to secure from

a redistribution of taxes from

the federal center, should be directed to

social programs. Unfortunately, the authorities

today are doing exactly the opposite:

for themselves, for the beloved

bureaucracy and the structures close to it,

they find extra fat to trim elsewhere

by cutting social programs. We are

categorically against this. As for

social programs in education

and healthcare, here is the important

point: along with the reduction of

staff, bonuses, and

funding, bureaucratic

pressure has increased. In recent years they have been forced

to fill out all sorts of reporting forms, so

in reality they spend more time writing than

working—teachers, doctors, and so

on. We are categorically against such a

system. Along with increasing, rather than reducing,

funding, we consider it very important

to strip officials of the authority

to pressure this system and instead introduce

some form of professional oversight—that is,

communities of medical professionals

and teachers that would set

standards and so on, instead of

bureaucrats doing it. This is what we will

propose: to remove this bureaucratic pressure.

And on the retirement age, we have not

agreed on a single common position, but I

will state mine: I am categorically against even

talking about raising the retirement

age. This is a fundamental issue. It is not

an accounting issue or a fiscal issue.

A high retirement age exists in

countries where life expectancy is dramatically

higher and where the overall health situation is

dramatically better, and

people there, after 60, are not running from

pharmacy to pharmacy because they are all ill; there

the situation is normal. Yes, they can

afford to keep working. Here, our

authorities have not met these basic requirements

in terms of life expectancy and

public health, yet they want the retirement

age to be like in Europe. First make

everything else like it is in Europe. These are

simply the basic requirements for any

normal, responsible government. Thank you.

You clearly had a question about money.

Will there be limits on funding, or

will some personal funds of coalition participants

be involved, for example?

It should be understood that in any case

financing an election campaign is

something very

strictly confined within legal boundaries.

Nevertheless, despite this, during

for example, my election

campaign for mayor of Moscow, we raised 103

million rubles (about 1.1 million USD), with every person providing

passport details and so on. Therefore,

the emphasis, of course,

in fundraising will be specifically on

this kind of grassroots fundraising from individuals. As for

money from coalition participants, well, each

member of the coalition will make some kind of contribution

in its own way. As for, say, money

from Open Russia and so on, it should

be understood that Khodorkovsky, even if he

wanted to finance something, would find it

extremely difficult to do so in his

legal situation and given

the current legislation, yes.

There will be a question about the economic

program, naturally.

Well, I am sure that by the summer, by the

launch of all the campaigns—I mean

around late June or early July—the coalition

will come forward with a unified platform for participation in

the 2016 elections

and will already be formed as

specific sections of this common platform

with concrete political positions for

the 2015 elections in the regions

that were selected. That is, we were talking

about having a general federal framework

for the political content of participation in these

elections, but there are regional specifics, and

the most important element will be the content

the substance tailored specifically

to each individual region. Am I

understanding correctly that this is based

on— No, this will be a joint effort. I

am sure

and the main participants in the coalition

have something to contribute in terms of intellectual

input to the preparation of this platform

we are an equal partnership, we

really are. I am sure that everyone brings

their own contribution. At the same time, our shared

ideological principles are reflected in

the coalition agreement, and a general

election platform is needed for the

2016 elections. This time, again, I

just want to draw your attention: these are three

campaigns in the regions; they are regional

campaigns with their own specifics. This is not

just something written up in Moscow

where everything was invented, from the logo

to the brand colors. These are

regional people; this is a people’s list that

also largely reflects

the political preferences of the people included

on that list, but within the framework of our

basic ideological

coalition agreement. Next

question, please. In the handout we were given,

it says that as a rule, the winner of the primary

takes first place on the electoral

list and also gets the right to

choose a single-member district for themselves first.

What exceptions can there be to this

rule? Well, for example, if they do not want to run in a

single-member district. Well, yes, it is clear that

it is impossible to regulate everything. We will always

be guided by the principle of, let’s say,

reasonable sufficiency. We do not want

to write a set of rules with 200 points so that

later someone can say, “Look, here in Article

12.1 of the regulations...” We proceed from the assumption that

all participants in the primaries, so to speak,

are adults who will sit down and

ultimately agree on the distribution of

certain territorial subgroups and all

these legal and technical

details, taking into account the need to maximize, well,

the coalition’s result itself. That is,

roughly speaking, it is clear that if

some local figure has built up support

in a particular district and they

can prove it, then it may be more important

to put them forward in that

territorial subgroup for the coalition’s overall

success. So that reservation was made

in order to give us room

for this kind of natural

and normal coalition discussions. In addition,

there is also an important purely technical issue.

Suppose a person wins the

primary, and then it turns out that they

do not have enough documents for registration

or our investigations department finds—

sorry, that they have a bank account in

another country. In other words, the person

simply cannot run anywhere for technical reasons.

To put the list at risk—and have the entire

list removed because of them—therefore here

simply because of bureaucracy and complex

legal issues—just imagine, in

Novosibirsk, the list must contain 79

people. We have to put 79 people on the

list, and that is the minimum number. Despite

the fact that there are obviously nowhere near that many winnable seats.

But we still need

to prepare documents for 79 people,

certificates, their

property statements, declarations—all of that.

So we can depart from the primary principle

only if one of the participants

cannot be included on the list for objective

reasons. Next question.

[music]

who was the main driving force behind this

democratic coalition. Simply put, if

this tragedy had not happened, Boris Nemtsov would be standing

here with us now. I think this

act of terror pushed everyone toward more

active steps and once again

demonstrated that although

we are a coalition and not a single party, and we do have

differences on one issue or another,

against the backdrop of what is happening, those

differences cannot be considered

fundamental. Last question, we are

wrapping up, please. Yes, two questions.

First, on the technical side: in the lists, should half of the

members be...?

This is a technical issue, but...

And the second question: your opponents there

will

surely

try to bring up the issue of Crimea in the agenda

and pull certain individual statements out of context.

How will you deal with that? I will answer

the technical question first. So, once

again, as of today, electoral

legislation for regional elections

—and federal elections as well—is structured

in such a way that it contains

an enormous number of bureaucratic

barriers. For example, the case of

the Novosibirsk Region has already been mentioned.

At minimum, the list must contain 79

people, even though only 38 seats are being contested,

and even theoretically, with a

100 percent result, a party cannot

win more than 38 seats. And in reality,

I do not know, probably under

the most favorable scenario, our coalition could

count on getting 10–15 seats there if we

get 30% of the vote there. Even so, we

have to put together a stack like this

of documents and bring in paperwork for at least 79

people, though 100 would be better.

Because if we are left with fewer than

79 names on the list after, say, some are knocked out

because of paperwork errors, then our

list

is removed in its entirety. That means

we have to submit documents for

100 people, even though in substance, well,

the top of the list will really be about 10–15 people.

That is why the regulations, which in particular

we handed out to you—the primary rules—

include a provision stating that

the primary will in fact determine

the slots corresponding to 40%

of the seats. So if, say, there are 38

mandates at stake, then 40% of 38, as it is not hard

to calculate, is 15. So we will

be contesting the first 15 places, and everything

below that, as everyone does, will be

well, filled, so to speak, with some

technical candidates. In particular, this

will allow us to meet the requirement for

50%

party representation

without any problems, because we will still

have to add another 85 people at the bottom anyway.

And all of them will be party members,

while it is clear that none of

them will have any chance of getting into the

regional legislative assembly. This is simply compliance with

this absurd bureaucratic barrier.

There are many such traps, but we know them all.

As for the use of sharp issues by the media or

by anyone else, or

themes—please, not just Nashi activists (pro-Kremlin youth movement members), but any people

can ask any questions. Each of us

has substantive answers

that we are not ashamed of, on any

issue. But you see, just as

this 86% is a kind of fiction

that exists only in VTsIOM (the Russian Public Opinion Research Center) polls and not in

real life, so too here the question is:

Why do the roads in Kostroma resemble

Luhansk after shelling?

You cannot answer that by saying, 'But at least

Crimea is ours.' We are absolutely convinced that there is

a real agenda connected with

corruption, connected with censorship at

the regional level, connected

simply with enormous inflation, a low

standard of living, unaffordable housing,

and a collapsing housing and utilities system, for which every year

federal targeted programs are adopted.

It is repeatedly declared that

utility rates must be frozen, that the increases must stop

and people must be protected, yet everything keeps happening

in exactly the same way. Therefore, we are confident that

the real agenda will completely push aside

these sort of Moscow-made

phantoms—the idea that we should endlessly discuss

Ukraine. But we are also ready to discuss Ukraine, the war, and the deaths of

people. So once again,

colleagues, I am concluding our

press conference. I would like

to thank you all for coming. I

am sure that our coalition and the members of our

people’s list will go out into the streets of the cities

and answer absolutely every question. I

am sure that we will receive broad support.

If we are allowed to take part in the elections, we

will make sure that ordinary people—

a huge number of ordinary people—

finally get political

representation, first in their

regions, then in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament),

and then we will win a majority in the

State Duma, and we will finally

make Russia develop like

a normal European country. Thank you

very much.

Let's go.