In the opposition

Yaroslavl is very opposed

September 5, 2013 Boris Nemtsov

On September 8, the elections will be held not only in Moscow. On the same day, residents of the Yaroslavl region will choose deputies of the regional Duma. In the current campaign, the coalition of representatives of three new opposition parties reflecting the mood of the liberal part of the protest movement, RPR-Parnas, the “folk alliance” and “Party December 5” participate. The election list has prominent Moscow politicians. Boris Nemtsov, who headed the list of the recently registered RPR-Parnas Party, told the “daily magazine” how the election campaign takes place.

The campaign is very dynamic. I already had almost ninety meetings with people. We go to the polls with the Navalny party (“People’s Alliance” - “Hedgehog”) and with the “Party of December 5” - this is the same coalition that put forward Navalny to the elections of the mayor of Moscow. At the start of the campaign about the RPR Parnas, no one knew, according to the last sociological ratings, we already have 14%, this is considered the main sensation of the current elections, since no one believed that we could go somewhere. And although we do not have a broadcast on the city television channel, and on the regional all programs are censored, meetings with people did their job.

We have a very intelligible human rights campaign, we demand the release of political prisoners. We consider the political prisoners under the arrest of the mayor of Yaroslavl Evgeny Urlashov and those who are sitting with him in the "sailor silence" (deputy Urlashov Dmitry Donskov, mayor adviser Alexei Lopatin, head of the municipal order of the Yaroslavl City Hall Maxim Placalaine - "hedgehog"). I gave a guarantee for Urlashov at a meeting in the Basmanny court on August 30, the only one of all who participates in the elections in Yaroslavl. I must say that all the local representatives of the opposition in words support Urlashov.

Our program is very simple - the dismantling of the Putin regime at the regional level. It is called "five folk laws." The law on the abolition of political censorship. The law on freezing tariffs for utilities before the audit. The law on overcoming corruption at the expense of open competitions in the presence of the press and competitors. Law on high -quality roads - we offer to pay bonuses to those construction companies that build high -quality roads. The law on replenishment of the regional budget at the expense of excise taxes. These are absolutely clear signals to people.

During the campaign, I noticed that they hate “United Russia” and a huge number of people are configured against Putin. Yaroslavl is very opposition. We now have posts “vote for the opposition! Vote for the RPR-Parnas! ” At the same time, we carry out serious educational work. We distributed tens of thousands of our reports - about the Olympiad (“Winter Olympiad in Subtropics” - “Hedgehog”), “Putin. Results "," Putin. Corruption ”,“ The life of a slave on galleys ”, so people here are well informed, despite the zombie.

Here is OJSC “Yaroslavl Sales Company”, which collects money for electricity, from July 1, tariffs are raised by 12%. The company is registered in Cyprus, and people pay for the light directly to Nikosia. But the main thing is that this company is the official sponsor of the United Russia Foundation, transferred there at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year 55 million rubles. I turned to the prosecutor general to register this fund as a “foreign agent”, as it is financed from abroad.

At first, the authorities did not touch us, because they considered outsiders. Now they were alarmed and began to drive Chernukha. On the city television channel, where I have no access, they showed the plot that I had a fight with Navalny, they told something about my apartment, about the fact that I am not going to work in the Yaroslavl Duma, although everyone knows that I am going to myself and even looked at myself in the city. The provocations have already begun, someone is dousing our cubes with black paint-we also have cubes here, as in Moscow. They began to beat our activists. In general, the authorities are furious, clearly frightened that a real opposition would be represented in the Yaroslavl Duma and this will give a wonderful example to other regions. I decided to participate in these elections and work in the regional Duma, because I want to show how to win from crooks and thieves not only in Moscow, but also in the regions. The opposition here is not only with us, but the whole opposition has real chances of getting a majority.

We have a wonderful election headquarters, they are led by Ilya Yashin. The team works great. On Thursday, a rally will be held under the slogans “Freedom Political Personality!”, “Not a single voice to crooks and thieves!”, “For honest elections!”. We were not agreed on for two weeks, but finally agreed. I had debates with many competitors. I won the leader of the local communists Alexander Vorobyov with a score of 70: 9, there were debates with the leader of the “reference” Greshnevikov, with the local “Zhirinov”, with the local representative of the “patriots of Russia”, “green”. But, of course, my debate with the leader of the local branch of United Russia Ilya Osipov was the central event. He was involved in tax evasion here, a criminal case was instituted against his company about tax failure on an especially large scale, nevertheless, he climbs to the elections to protect his business and not pay on. But actually, there are crooks and thieves are afraid to admit that they are from United Russia, because they can give them in the face for this, and carefully hide that they are related to this party. At meetings with people, I have never met supporters of United Russia. And Osipov on his Billboards is embarrassed to indicate that he is a member of Osra. The leader of the list was placed on the astronaut Valentin Tereshkov. She, of course, is a well -deserved, but very elderly person, she is sick, she said that she would not go to the Duma. Her image is exploited in vain, from morning to evening they show a movie how she flew into space.

The authorities are trying to reduce the turnout. There is not a single announcement that elections will be held on September 8. They are clearly preparing for falsifications, and in all possible ways. One of the ways is this: they bribe the old house at home, she runs around the apartments, either for money, or persuades threats to vote for “United Russia”, and then receives a bonus. Other methods are known - the notorious "carousels", rewriting protocols, voting at home. But we collect observers from all over the country who will grab the crooks by the hand. So if the authorities are not all stingy, then we are guaranteed to get into the Duma.

The material was prepared by Grigory Durnovo

Photo by ITAR-TASS / Sergey Metelitsa