Translated material
Mintusov vs hakamada
Elections without choice: participate or not to participate? This question is faced with many citizens of the country today. How to be? Refuse the struggle in unequal conditions or fight to the end? About this at the meeting at The New Times, the politician Irina Khakamada and political strategist Igor Mintusov were arguing
There are no elections without a procedure, and the procedure-equal to all parties access to the media, equal conditions for political competition, equal opportunities to convey their programs to voters, so that they make a conscious, rather than de facto-finished choice, is not respected. How to be?
Irina Khakamada: Do not participate in the parliamentary elections. I emphasize - in parliamentary, because it is a collective game. Party leaders are not free from moods in regional departments, where there are very pragmatic people who come there to make a career. Regional branches can gain votes due to the fact that they agree with the governor, receive support, praise power. This is an uncontrolled process, it is impossible to participate in it, because in this case parties acquire a new profession. It is called a fashion designer, or a decorator. There is an authoritarian regime, it must be decorated, and for a certain amount of money you are invited to decorate the elections with certain democratic buttons in the form of the participation of democrats and liberals.
Igor Mintusov: I completely disagree. For me, the question, to participate or not to participate in the elections is equivalent to the question of - breathing or not to breathe. Answer: Breathe. And if the air is spoiled? Breathe. And if a lot of exhaust gases? Breathe. And if the air is poisoned? Breathe. Similarly here: participate. I can say to people who do not participate in the elections: friends, I am your protests about how everything in the country is bad, not very interesting, because you do nothing in order to change this, with the exception of your sobs on the public on the pages of the media.
- Search for fresh air -
That is, you adhere to the position of Aristotle, who said that people who are trying to live outside society, either gods or wild animals. Then let's decide on the concepts: what do you mean by the election?
Hakamada: a huge number of politicians, including me, and Ryzhkov, and Kasyanov, tried honestly how citizens participate in the elections and had a long time to amuse themselves with the hope that at least formally the procedure would be followed. Not a single political party could be registered. A classic example today is the exposure of not only objectionable politicians from the list of ATP and Yabloko, but even Irina Yasina, because it was associated with those who financed the opposition.
I understand Mr. Mintusov: for a political strategist, our non-participation in the elections is not a call not to go to the vote-this is his death, he will definitely not be able to breathe, because political strategists exist only as long as there are at least some elections, then they are in demand and will receive their daily bread. But, unfortunately, today the representatives of the elite in Russia do not understand that they are building a path to hell, and if it continues, no elections will be needed, no political technologists, political scientists, experts, because the vertical will be completely lined up and will not even need the scenery.
And about the beautiful comparison that the air is poisoned, it smells bad, but you still need to breathe, I will say this: if you breathe hard in the toilet, you can open the door, go out and breathe fresh air, and new ideas will come right away.
- work for historians -
Do you mean street policy?
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Hakamada: It can be a street policy, it may be that Igor Evgenievich contemptuously called “sobs in the media”, even in minimal quantities, but bringing words, phrases, ideas and meanings of freedom to people.
Mintusov: I will move the caring attitude of Irina Mutsuovna to the problems that the workshop of political technologists may arise, but they will not be left without bread. As for the opportunity to open the door and breathe fresh air ... Obviously, in another country? I do not see another opportunity.
Khakamada: Do you want to say that all the air in Russia is saturated with shit? I believe that there is still where to breathe fresh air. In addition to politics in Russia, there are still art, literature, public and civilian work on the streets, the protection of disabled people - outside political programs and the desire to take power and participate in the elections.
Mintusov: I completely agree. I believed that we were talking about political space in the narrow sense of the word related to the elections.
Now I am returning to the question asked. Of course, elections are not only the right to come and vote, but also competitiveness, the possibility of a conscious choice, etc. But non -compliance with this procedure does not mean that we must abandon the procedure itself. When the question is raised like this: once the procedure is violated, then what is the point of taking part in it-it resembles the logic of my former friends, new Russians, who in the mid-90s talked a lot about the fact that Russia should be lifted from the knees, but to my question: “Do you pay taxes?” They answered: "Well, why pay taxes, if the officials still plunder everything?" I do not agree with this logic. If you live in a state and consider yourself a citizen, you must, firstly, pay taxes, and secondly, to participate in the elections.
I do not want to say banality like the one that politics is an art of possible. I believe that during the vote you can express your point of view, since almost all parties are represented - both the right and the left spectrum. But even if these parties were not there, then at least there is an opportunity to come and spoil the ballot. This will facilitate the work of those historians who will study our society in fifty years: they will see that, say, more than 50 millions of people, and 5 million ballots were spoiled in the 2007 elections. And then it will be possible to understand that Irina Mutsuovna with her vote of protest was in these 10 percent, and not in those 50 that simply did not come to the polls, and she did not vote with them, because she could not get from Rublevka, where she lives, to the polling station, because there were traffic jams. Either she was just at this time abroad, or she doesn’t care what is happening in the country.
Khakamada: Let's not be personalized - who lives where and from where he cannot get. Because, firstly, I do not live on Rublevka. And then we will now remember about your apartment in France: you will probably fly from France and have time to ruin the ballot.
I agree with you that to spoil the ballot is actually restoring the line “against all”, which was removed, which contradicts the constitution. But I can’t call, as a federal -level politician: “People, let's go to spoil the ballots!” - This is infantilism. Therefore, I do not urge people not to go to the polls. Let them decide for themselves, and God forbid, if they have enough intelligence in this stream to figure it out. I am talking about my personal position - that I do not want to participate in this performance. They will never give my party to me, because I am in a real opposition to power, even a constructive opposition, calm, without radicalism, and so on, for the authorities it doesn’t matter: this is a source of another energy attractive to young people, and the authorities are afraid of future generations.
But even in order to enter the lists, suppose, ATP or Yabloko, you must first go to another door, to the presidential administration. And there to subscribe that you will enter the parliament on such conditions, you will criticize here, but here you can’t criticize. If after that you will break at least once, no one will ever forgive you for this.
- An agreement with the devil -
Do you mean Rogozin, Glazyev, Ryzhkova?
Hakamada: Of course. There was an agreement, and then they moved away from him. As a result, they are not allowed anywhere. Even people like me, who never agreed on anything, did not sign anything and therefore did not violate anything, use more freedom - because there was no this agreement with the devil.
I do not want to vote either for the Union of Right Forces or for the “Yabloko” for a single simple reason: even when they are in parliament, the ATP and “Yabloko” will not be able to declare any of their real opposition idea and even more so pushing it into life.
Mintusov: For this, the ATP and "Yabloko" need to dial the majority ...
Khakamada: But today, the whole “underlife system”, as I call it, is built in such a way that even with relative loyalty they will never receive a critical majority, but even a quarter of parliament. Moreover, I do not blame the Kremlin - it acts absolutely professionally, I always appreciate the enemy. He has his own idea - so that all institutions in the country are puppet. It surprises me as people who call themselves democrats, so bend and pass everything in order to just survive. If they took a chance once, they would have stood up together to the back and would not have lost a step, the people would have heard them. Maybe they wouldn’t even achieve anything, but they would have tried it. And today everyone survives one by one.
- No revolutions -
Is it possible to say that parties today in Russia have equal conditions for adversarial struggle?
Mintusov: No. But from the fact that people do not have complete information, it does not follow that they are not able to make a choice. The choice is made on the basis of the opportunities that the voter sees in front of himself, and he sees the names of the parties, their programs ...
Khakamada: He should know them not two days before the election, and not even in a month, but constantly. If he hears one propaganda from the elections to the elections and all the positive is directed only in one direction, then he will not spoil the ballot. He will once again believe in this fairy tale and will be deceived again.
Mintusov: Let's see deeper the problem. Any elected campaign consists of two parts. The first part is the development of a message based on the study of electoral preferences. The second part is its delivery. As for delivery, here I completely agree, it is unequal. But Irina said nothing about the quality of the Messide, that is, about programs. It is sad to give an example of the 2003 elections, because I belong to the potential electorate of the right, I traditionally vote historically for them. But there was no competitive advantage at the informative level of the same ATP compared to United Russia.
Hakamada: I absolutely agree with this. The “apple” and the ATP lost the campaign because they could not unite, and then it was in demand. But over these four years we began to live in another country. Everything has changed very much.
How do you feel about the alternative that “other Russia” offers: not to participate in the elections, create your own protopopolment, conduct primaries and, if necessary, engage in street policy?
Mintusov: I don't like it, because there is too a short step to the well -known list: mail, phone, telegraph ... I do not want a revolution. I don't like it.
Don't you like the non -systemic opposition?
Mintusov: No, I don't like the other. I believe that the president, for all the monopoly on information and with all the use of the administrative resource in 2004, was chosen legitimately. The parliament in 2003 was elected legitimate methods, the level of falsification was, speaking in a professional language, within the error. Therefore, it is wrong to deal with the legitimately chosen authority by illegitimate methods.
And the primaries that the opposition holds?
Mintusov: If everything happens within the framework of peaceful opposition procedures, then I support it, and if this is the first step to something like Smolny, if acts of civil disobedience follow, I am against it. I believe that we must remain in the legal field, despite the fact that there are a lot of questions to the authorities and it itself goes beyond the limits of the legal field.
Hakamada: It is true that any representative of the establishment does not need shocks, we are annoyed by radicalism in any form. But why the authorities disperse the peaceful permissions and rallies with one hand, and pushes the “ourselves” who chase oppositionists ... The authorities prepare combat, very aggressive detachments of cynical young people. What is the case? I am against any revolutions, but when the government does not allow normal free-thinking people to participate in equal elections, it itself creates a revolutionary situation. Moreover, the crisis will still be-they steal terribly. The new composition of the government is actually an extraordinary anti-corruption committee, because it is necessary to convey at least some money to voters, at least to the presidential election. Responsibility for the crisis will not be incurred by Kasparov and not Kasyanov. The power itself will suffer.
And what to do?
Mintusov: Participate in the elections. To create a program that can attract voters and compete with United Russia, and go to the polls. Fight to the last.
Where is this last limit?
Mintusov: The limit is when you cannot take the next step. When there is no opposition. Now it is - both on the right and on the left.