Alexey Navalny calls for a move from ‘trash-talk’ to real politics

The politician’s 10-point questionnaire aims to clarify political positions ahead of the 2024 election in Russia

The imprisoned opposition politician Alexey Navalny has published a 10-point questionnaire that he believes will clarify the political positions of Russia’s key politicians, public figures, journalists, and influencers with regard to the 2024 presidential election campaign.

Alexey Navalny’s 10-point questionnaire was published today on the politician’s website. Navalny, now serving a 19-year sentence in a penal colony, writes that the idea for the questionnaire came to him in response to the heated public debates about strategy for the upcoming election. The politician says that all key players in Russia’s opposition politics should state their position on the 10 questions he outlined, so as to clarify what voters and campaigners alike can expect of them during the upcoming election cycle.

Navalny’s 10 questions

1. Is the election important to you?
2. Do you have a clear strategy?
3. Do you allow the possibility of boycotting the election under certain circumstances?
4. Do you allow voting for any candidate except Putin as a strategy?
5. Do you allow the possibility of appointing a single opposition candidate and consolidating all campaign efforts around that candidate?
6. Can one of the following people — Zyuganov, Slutsky, Nechayev, Sobchak, Venediktov, Yavlinsky, Muratov, or Roizman — be that single opposition candidate?
7. What did you do during the 2018 election: vote, boycott, or would you rather not answer?
8. Is online presence alone enough for running a presidential campaign in 2024?
9. Is it permissible to pay for blogger and influencer political advertising as part of the campaign?
10. Are you ready to make full use of your YouTube channel during the election campaign?

Some of these questions imply follow-up questions like “Should one vote if there are only two candidates, Putin and Kadyrov?” or “Should one vote if all the candidates on the ballot support the war with Ukraine?.”

Navalny’s proposal

Navalny is inviting all significant players in Russian opposition politics to fill out the “Ten questions from Navalny” questionnaire on his website, writing that when parties to the debate fill it out,

everyone will see their real position clearly, without any intervening verbal chaff. You’ll be able to see what to expect (or not to expect) from a concrete politician. I have also added a couple of questions about campaign tactics, since that’s where all the passions will rage.

As a “guarantee of objectivity,” the politician has invited the editor-in-chief of TV Rain Tikhon Dzyadko and Meduza publisher Galina Timchenko “to interview all the key parties to the debate, as well as a number of people whose opinion has proven to influence many in the past.”

Navalny also asks the economist Sergey Guriev and the political blogger Michael Nacke to analyze the respondents’ answers to the questionnaire, so as to “clarify who can dialogue with whom, without wasting time in meaningless arguments.”

Navalny’s list of key political players and opinion-makers

Here’s a list of people singled out by Alexey Navalny as the key players in the 2024 campaign:

• Boris Akunin
• Sergey Aleksashenko
• Yevgenia Albats
• Roman Anin
• Roman Badanin
• Dmitry Bykov
• Ilya Varlamov
• Leonid Volkov
• Abbas Gallyamov
• Vladimir Gelman
• Grigory Golosov
• Dmitry Gudkov
• Gennady Gudkov
• Sergey Guriev
• Tikhon Dzyadko
• Filipp Dzyadko
• Ivan Zhdanov
• Boris Zimin
• Mikhail Zygar
• Oleg Itskhoki
• Vladimir Kara-Murza
• Garry Kasparov
• Mikhail Kasyanov
• Maxim Kats
• Ilya Krasilshchik
• Alexander Kynev
• Tatyana Lazareva
• Yulia Latynina
• Ruslan Leviev
• Mikhail Lobanov
• Vladimir Milov
• Maxim Mironov
• Dmitry Muratov
• Michal Nacke
• Alexander Nevzorov
• Vladimir Osechkin
• Sergey Parkhomenko
• Maria Pevchikh
• Andrey Pivovarov
• Alexander Plyushchev
• Danila Poperechny
• Maxim Reznik
• Yevgeny Roizman
• Sergey Smirnov
• Lyubov Sobol
• Valery Solovey
• Konstantin Sonin
• Yevgeny Stupin
• Mark Feigin
• Tatyana Felgengauer
• Mikhail Khodorkovsky
• Lilia Chanysheva
• Yevgeny Chichvarkin
• Mikhail Shats
• Viktor Shenderovich
• Eketarina Schulmann
• Tamara Eildelman
• Grigory Yudin
• Ilya Yashin

How did Navalny answer his own 10 questions?

1. Is the election important to you?

Yes.

1.1. Do you plan to actively advocate a cause during the campaign?

Yes.

2. Do you have a clear strategy? No.

2.1. Name a deadline by which you will outline your strategy.

January 15, 2024.

3. Do you allow the possibility of boycotting the election under certain circumstances?

Yes.

4. Do you allow voting for any candidate except Putin as a strategy?

Yes.

5. Do you allow the possibility of appointing a single opposition candidate and consolidating all campaign efforts around that candidate?

Yes.

6. Can one of the following people — Zyuganov, Slutsky, Nechayev, Sobchak, Venediktov, Yavlinsky, Muratov, or Roizman — be that single opposition candidate?

No.

7. What did you do during the 2018 election: vote, boycott, or would you rather not answer?

Boycott.

8. Is online presence alone enough for conducting a presidential campaign in the 2024 election?

No.

9. Is online presence alone enough for running a presidential campaign in 2024?

No.

10. Are you ready to make full use of your YouTube channel during the election campaign?

Yes.

10.1 How many monthly unique viewers does your YouTube channel have?

More than a million.