In this video, recorded the day after the regional elections in September 2019, Alexei Navalny celebrates the first major success of the “Smart Voting” strategy. After independent candidates were cynically barred from running and the summer protests in Moscow were brutally suppressed, this campaign united opposition-minded voters and stripped United Russia of its monopoly in the Moscow City Duma. Alexei warmly thanks his supporters and, with his trademark humor, explains how citizens’ solidarity helped decisively defeat Metelsky, the head of United Russia in Moscow, along with other City Hall protégés.
Text version
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I usually start my videos with, “Hi, this is…”
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Navalnaya, but right now I want to begin with:
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let me hug you, or give you a high five. I want to congratulate all of you
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for what we achieved together yesterday.
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What we did with Smart Voting was truly
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historic. For the first time in 20 years
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of Putin being in power, his party faced
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organized resistance in an election,
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and we won them—at least the most important ones.
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It’s now 10 a.m.
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on Monday, and in St. Petersburg
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the scandals over the vote count are still going on, and
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municipal candidates are still having
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their victories stolen. But overall, even now
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we can already say this:
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Khabarovsk: a total rout of United Russia,
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in the city assembly, the regional legislature, and in the
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by-election to the State Duma,
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Smart Voting candidates played a key role.
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United Russia not only no longer has
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a majority there—
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it has practically disappeared altogether.
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Just recently, both the city and the region were completely controlled by United Russia.
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Irkutsk: in the city council election,
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another total defeat for United
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Russia, and once again we see the important role of
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Smart Voting. The head of our
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headquarters in Novosibirsk, Sergei Boyko,
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came in second with 18 percent in the mayoral election,
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in a desperate fight against the joint
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candidate of United Russia and the Communist Party.
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If he had been the sole opposition candidate, he would have
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won outright. Even so, he firmly established
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himself as a leading opposition figure. St. Petersburg:
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hundreds of municipal council seats
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were won by Smart Voting candidates. And of course, Moscow.
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And of course, Moscow.
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A native Muscovite who says, “I don’t go to protests,”
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and who used to dismiss all this as nonsense,
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walked all the way to Gagarin Square—
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yesterday the capital of our country
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made it absolutely clear that it does not want to be
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a barracks for United Russia in the Moscow City Duma.
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The changes there are sensational. The share held by
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the party of power used to be around 90 percent.
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Opposition candidates got in very
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rarely, and almost always only as a result of
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backroom negotiations.
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But yesterday, United Russia lost
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its majority. And here I have to make
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a confession and apologize for my own lack
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of faith. On the eve of the election, when we were making
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bets on how many seats would go
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to Smart Voting candidates, I said
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my optimistic forecast was 15. That is,
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rationally I understood we could even win
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a majority, but that had never happened before.
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It was just hard to imagine. But yesterday, together,
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we and the candidates supported by
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Smart Voting really
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won a majority. United Russia
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won only 21 out of 45 seats.
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That is exactly why, at around 3 a.m.,
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they stopped the count in several districts
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and tried to steal 8 seats.
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What is happening is, in effect, vote-rigging
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and falsification of the election results.
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A stack of ballots was mixed into Mitinsky’s pile—
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ballots cast for me.
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Savostyanov, Sergei Vladimirovich.
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And unfortunately, they managed to steal four of them.
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They stole them.
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The margin there was small, and
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the crooks from the mayor’s office needed only
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a few hundred stuffed ballots at
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a single polling station to take victory away from the
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candidate.
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I said all along that everything would be decided by a few hundred
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votes. That was pretty hard
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to imagine even on Saturday. But if we
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had brought another 3–4 percent of voters
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to these elections, then yesterday we would have
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won fully two-thirds of the seats—that is,
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an absolute majority. Now, of course,
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there will be long court battles over the stolen
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mandates. The candidates will demand
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recounts, and we must support them.
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But even so, 20 out of 45 seats
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are going to the opposition, whereas before,
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let me remind you, it was 5 out of 45.
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And we also won several
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symbolically important victories. First,
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we kicked the leader of United Russia
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out of the Moscow City Duma—Metelsky, the billionaire and
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owner of hotels in Austria. This was already
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an absolutely principled matter for
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the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and for our investigations department.
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Candidate Savostyanov, backed by Smart
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Voting, fought as hard as he could yesterday until 5
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in the morning. The fraudsters in the election commission would not enter
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the protocol into the vote-counting system
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because they were trying to save
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Metelsky. For them, too, it was
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a matter of principle to save the leader of their
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party. But no—Metelsky is no longer a deputy,
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even though it had seemed impossible to budge him at all.
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Second, of course, Khamara.
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The vice rector of the Higher School of Economics, who had become
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effectively the face of the mayor’s office in this campaign.
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Sobyanin was obsessively trying to get this
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lying, hypocritical woman elected as a deputy. For her sake,
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Ilya Yashin was first barred from the election,
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then kept in a jail cell until the day of
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the vote. Then they removed the Communist
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candidate because Yashin had endorsed him.
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In the end, four days before the election, Yashin
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endorsed another candidate, Yandiyev.
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We faced the task of shifting support to him,
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and, frankly, that was not easy. But
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Yandiyev himself rose to the occasion, and Smart
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Voting worked perfectly.
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Khamara spent tens of millions of
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rubles in that district.
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But Yandiyev, together with Yashin sitting in jail,
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simply crushed her. The speaker of the
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Moscow City Duma, Alexei Shaposhnikov,
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the top deputy—we told you about
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his penthouse worth 95 million rubles.
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Do you know how he won thanks to Smart Voting?
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The Communists backed Yefimov.
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And United Russia registered, in this
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district, his namesake—that is, a decoy candidate.
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And a spoiler candidate with the surname Yefimov. In the end, our
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Yefimov got 38 percent of the vote.
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Unfortunately, the fake Yefimov managed
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to mislead a certain number of
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inattentive voters
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and got 7 percent, while Shaposhnikov,
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the chief deputy, got 41—that is, less
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than Yefimov.
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So yes, formally he won—by deceiving people, by nullifying the result.
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But in substance, we know that
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United Russia lost, and in this district they have
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a minority of the votes. Regarding the deputies' conduct—
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his head is easier to count: the board lit up during
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the vote.
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33 in favor, 3 against—so 36
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people.
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Count the heads and see how many
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are present. I counted 26.
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He has a minute to count. We have
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a special system in the chamber, and
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you trust it completely. That means your system
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is malfunctioning, because
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use your own eyes and count:
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there are 26 people sitting here, actually.
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The existing system fully
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ensures functionality. Use your head.
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By the way, another funny story involving a decoy candidate
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is the funniest story about how brilliantly
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Smart Voting worked in one of the
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districts.
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There was an independent candidate named Alexander Solovyov running there.
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candidate.
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Running against him was the utterly disgusting
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United Russia candidate Sabina Tsvetkova.
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And she too went ahead and brought to
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the election a decoy Solovyov.
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Also named Alexander Solovyov. Then they
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decided to remove the real Solovyov altogether,
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and they did—he was arrested, just like
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the other independent candidates.
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Then, in that district, they removed everyone, and
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we ended up in a situation where it was completely
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unclear whom to endorse.
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There were only technical candidates there for the vote,
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and no one else. But
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since the question was:
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if Sobyanin needed Tsvetkova so badly,
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then we absolutely had to make sure she lost. In
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the end, the real Solovyov suggested that we
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support the fake Solovyov,
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the decoy. We included him in Smart
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Voting, and he was elected deputy. I don't
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know what kind of deputy he'll be, but the main thing is
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that in this district, the people decided—not United Russia.
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Across the city as a whole, if
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previously the average United Russia candidate got 45 percent
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and the opponent got 21, meaning there usually was little chance,
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now, in all districts,
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there was fierce competition, and the results
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were separated by only tiny margins.
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Our main victory is that we managed
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to organize collective action.
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For the first time, we did something together, and
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our strength increased many times over. Each
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United Russia candidate had a budget of no less than 20
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to 30 million rubles (about US$220,000–330,000), while Smart Voting-backed
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candidates rarely had even
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1 million rubles (about US$11,000). There is no
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majority.
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Putin's ruling party, United Russia, does not have one.
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We proved it.
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I thank each and every person who made their
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contribution to this common cause. Thank you to everyone who
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campaigned for Smart Voting in whatever way they could.
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Without you, none of this would have happened. Thank you
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to the voters, thank you to the candidates, and to those who
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took part in the elections, and to those whom they
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didn't allow to participate but who refused to stay silent.
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Huge thanks to those who went to
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the rallies. Thank you to those who, sitting in jail on
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trumped-up charges, truly
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showed courage and inspired all of us
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with determination—and anger, of course.
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It is to these people that the first success of
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Smart Voting is dedicated. We elected deputies
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who, I am sure, will fight for their
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freedom. Thank you to everyone at the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) and in our
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regional штабs—it was, well, not easy to do all this
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under conditions of constant searches
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and arrests, but you did it. Well done. Starting not even
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tomorrow, but today, in
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Putin's administration, there will be
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endless meetings
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about what can be set against the strategy of Smart
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Voting. And they will come up with something. Well, and
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we will come up with something too, because we
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will start, from this very minute, analyzing
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the results and figuring out how we can
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perform even better. The main thing is that you and I
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have realized our own strength—the strength
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of collective action. The opposition by itself
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can never win on its own,
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but as you can see, we can
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organize ourselves so that we have a single
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list that includes right-wingers, left-wingers, and
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everyone else. I hope you liked
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electing deputies yourselves. It's a new
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feeling, isn't it? When it's not Putin and his people
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who decide who will be deputies,
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but us. It's a good feeling—let's
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get used to it.