Dizziness from failures

The path of a democratic coalition from creation to collapse tracked and analyzed the reasons for the New Times

More recently, Vladimir Milov (left) and Alexei Navalny (right) did not question Mikhail Kasyanov’s right in the first place in the list of Parnas, Moscow, December 11, 2015

By the beginning of May, it became completely clear - the democratic coalition on the basis of the Parnas party fell apart. Not only due to the machinations of the treacherous Kremlin. The pressure of power on the opposition does not weaken. The prosecutor’s office, for example, sends letters in the company whose minority shareholder was Alexei Navalny - one of the leaders of the demo -army, who later played a noticeable role in her collapse, with a request to provide information about the “facts of its illegal activity”. The family of a family of Navalny’s friend Ivan Nesterenko is checked - "for the corruption component and the participation of Navalny in it." On May 13, Navalny and employees of the Corruption Fund is unknown why they detained, and then the police were released. But even these obvious persecutions are not indulgence on any political moves.

The logical result of the collapse of the coalition is a decrease in the level of confidence in potential voters to the non-systemic opposition, the lost time that the failed candidates will now have to catch up, if only they plan to at least somehow prove themselves during the parliamentary campaign, and melting the chances of seeing the seventh convocation of deputies with an independent position in the state-minded thought.

At the start

On February 27, 2015, the co -chair of the party Parnas Boris Nemtsov was killed in Moscow. It was after his death that a number of opposition politicians made an attempt to unite the Kremlin, the movements on the eve of the large electoral cycle. In the fall of 2015, elections in the Legislative Assembly of 11 regions were faced, in the fall of 2016 - elections to the State Duma. The situation in which the opposition were on the eve of the start of negotiations on the creation of the coalition can be characterized as a crisis: city protests, which so much amazed the Kremlin’s imagination in 2011-2012, actually came to naught. The rating of Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of Crimean euphoria and other “geopolitical successes” steadily grew. The vast majority of the population unconditionally supported power in any of its endeavors. If you do not take into account the systemic opposition parties and Yabloko, which has the glory of a deliberately inconsistent, there were: several parties in the “non -players”, in the names and programs of which even supporters were confused, as well as a matter of a single number of politicians with federal fame. The coalition was a chance to get out of the crisis, and contrary to Russian political traditions, the opposition managed to agree.

On April 17, 2015, Parnassus, headed by Mikhail Kasyanov, and the Party of Progress Alexei Navalny signed an agreement on the creation of the coalition. On April 20, they were joined by the “demo” (Vladimir Milov), the “civil initiative” (Andrei Nechaev), as well as the unregistered “Party of December 5” and the Libertarian party. Open Russia Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced the support of the democratic coalition.

Checking Kostroma

Immediately after the creation of the coalition, Alexei Navalny said that its participants were “not going to sit down on round tables” and are aimed at a real political struggle. The Democratic Republic declared the intention to participate in the regional elections and announced the list of priority regions. And also - the willingness to form lists of candidates following the results of the primaries.

This was the reason for the first split. The Civil Initiative refused to participate in the primaries in the Kaluga region. It was officially stated that the positions of the “civil initiative” in Kaluga are “very strong”, and Parnassus may face “serious opposition to the authorities”. Unofficially, the sources in the party claimed that Nechaev did not want to take risks, competing on the primaries with the "people of Navalny". However, all this, as it turned out later, did not have much importance: 100 % of the signatures of voters collected by the Nechaev party were rejected by formal signs.

The Demoralization of the primaries nevertheless spent, although there were no great enthusiasm of voters in any of the regions in preliminary elections. But in all three regions where the coalition participants were going to go to the polls - Novosibirsk, Kaluga and Kostroma - the election committee also, using formal, and often absurd reasons, rejected lists of voter signatures. Only the personal intervention of the domestic policy of Vyacheslav Volodin, who was overseas in the presidential administration, preoccupied with the issues of legitimacy of elections, led to a revision of the decision in the only region - the Kostroma region. The list (from Parnassus, a registered party that has the right to participate in the elections) was headed by Ilya Yashin.

The campaign was tough: the mailboxes of Kostroma were overwhelmed by newspapers telling about the gay orgies of the opposition, provocateurs regularly appeared at meetings with voters, Yashin was detained by the police, and the chief of staff of the coalition Andrei Pivovarov even found himself in a pre-trial detention center-he was accused of an attempt to buy the UFMS database (see NT No. 27 dated August 31, 2015) .

On September 13, 2015, on a single voting day, about 2 % of voters voted for Parnas. The demo -abuse recognized the defeat and did not dispute the results.

The main thing is participation?

Even before Kostroma among sympathetic demopalists of political scientists and journalists, disputes began: does the opposition needs to participate in the elections? The arguments of those who believe - no, do not need, summarized for NT political scientist Fedor Krasheninnikov: “You need to participate in the elections only when there is a chance to win and when there is confidence in the organizers of the elections. In other cases, any participation in the opposition’s election only plays the hands of power - it legitimizes both the elections themselves and the selected organ. Expressing the consent of playing thimble, you not only enrich the thimble, but also disoriented random passers -by: they see that a decent person sat down to play, and think that, probably, everything is honest here. ”

But for participation in the elections - also strong arguments. The authorities need not just opposition in the elections. The authorities need loser oppositionists. And this means-during the campaign, the authorities will go to any violations to ensure the opposition losing, simply because it does not know how to act differently, especially at the regional level (this, in fact, confirmed Kostroma). Whether the legitimization of the election procedure contributes to the scandals - the question, to put it mildly, is controversial. And more importantly, the elections, even obviously losing, are an opportunity to expand recognition, convey their own agenda to voters who do not read opposition in social networks. Elections are a tribune that is guaranteed by law access to the media, the opportunity to hold rallies and meetings with voters, which is strange not to try to use.

Gave a Kostroma campaign and food for substantive conclusions. It became clear, for example, that the procedure of primaries is complex and not very attractive even for loyal voters. Or that the anti -corruption agenda in the regions does not work: according to Yashin, who held more than a dozen meetings with the inhabitants of Kostroma, the old women in the yards listened with interest about the over -theisles of the members of the Lake cooperative. But, alas, this did not affect the result of the elections: apparently, the news that officials and close to power are stealing in Russia - relative and not very stunning news for citizens, from the power of the distant ones.

The road to the collapse

For the members of the Democialization themselves, the question of whether to participate in the elections did not stand. They focused on preparing for the federal election campaign. They planned to go to the Duma on the Parnassus list so as not to collect voter signatures (this right gives the mandate Boris Nemtsov in the Yaroslavl Regional Duma). They were going to form a list by means of primaries. In December 2015, it became known that the first three places on the list were already distributed. The first goes to the leader of Parnassus Mikhail Kasyanov, the second and third are reserved for “people with federal fame”, whose surnames were not called. Ilya Yashin then stated that this was a "conscious decision of the entire coalition." The primaries should have taken place on April 23–24. Later, the vote was moved to the end of May - "for technical reasons."

It quickly became clear that the point is not a problem on the primaries' website. Representatives of Parnassus embarrassed a weak interest in the procedure. The coalition expected that about 100 thousand people would take part in the preliminary elections, however, according to NT sources, two weeks before voting on the primaries website registered no more than 6 thousand voters (voters to participate in voting, as well as candidates, needed special registration). There was a rumor that Parnassus was considering the option with the rejection of the idea of ​​forming a list following the results of the primaries. Then Alexei Navalny told NT : “Non -recognition of the primaries will make it impossible to find the Party of Progress in the Coalition” (see NT No. 12 of April 11, 2016).

 ** The voter is interested in that in addition to the shocking news about the wealth of the Rotenberg brothers, people who claim to “participate in real politics” ** can offer him to him

The last blow was the film “Kasyanov Day”, shown on April 1 by the NTV television company. A typical drain of compromising evidence, rude interference in a private life, it would seem, to the opposition to this is not used to this. But, apparently, the members of the democraticization seriously hit the sharp reviews of the ally of Mikhail Kasyanov on Parnas Natalia Pelevina about some other participants in the association. At first, Parnas, Deputy chairman of Parnas, suggested Kasyanov to refuse the first place in the list and participate in the primaries on an equal basis with everyone. Kasyanov refused. Yashin withdrew his candidacy from the primaries - "in protest." Later, Yashin’s demand was repeated by Alexei Navalny. Then there were long - and, apparently, the coalition members themselves were not interesting disputes about who and which agreements violated the first. The “demo” and a party of progress came out of the coalition. The coalition ceased to exist.

Forgotten voter

What is the rest? Instead of combining the opposition in the elections, a small squabble with a series of mutual accusations. It is this pettiness that is the saddest part of the story. It’s not a secret for anyone that the Parnassus list is obviously impassable. If there were chances, then the single -mandate in individual districts with the predominance of the educated urban population. But by single -mandate districts, the coalition participants were not interested in little, focusing on a bargaining around the position in the list. They fought as if they already had a majority in the Duma and in the upcoming elections the coalition will have an indispensable victory, and the only question is how to divide the guaranteed mandates. What did the potential voter eventually learn about the opposition? The new, not loyal, not reading the Blogs of the Coalition leaders? Only what said about Pelevin’s colleagues in the NTV film, and I don’t want to repeat aloud.

Coalition members, having decided to play the election with the authorities, did not notice the main participant in this game - the voter. Breathing about procedural issues, they did not find time to explain to him why, in fact, to vote for the opposition. And in the primaries, and in the elections to the State Duma. After all, the voter is not interested in who deceived whom, and who remained in a white tailcoat and with a proud look. The voter is interested in that in addition to the shocking news about the wealth of the Rotenberg brothers, people who claim to “participate in real politics” can offer him.

The official election campaign has not even started, the time remains to correct errors. But for this it is necessary to overcome yourself, to question your own infallibility, to take into account the gained experience - by no means victorious. And it is not at all obvious that for the leaders of the unsystematic opposition, this is a solved problem.

Photo: Yuri Martyanov/Kommersant