The League of Voters

Yesterday presentation of the League of Voters was held in Moscow. It is a union of non-political activists, who participate in demonstrations for fair elections. Its aim is public a control under fairness of the elections process. Initiators of the League are sixteen prominent social activists of Russia: blogger Rustem Adaganov, writer Dmitry Bykov, social activist Ilya Varlamov, producer, director Georgy Vasilyev, doctor Yelizaveta Glinka, video-blogger Dmitry Ivanov, TV presentors Leonid Parfenov and Tatyana Lazareva, political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, journalist Sergey Parkhomenko, journalist Olga Romanova, businessman, activist of the White Ribbon movement Yelena Tikhonova, writer Ludmila Ulitskaya, writer Boris Akunin, rock singer Yurki Shevchuk and coordinator of the movement Blue Hods Petr Shkumatov. They addressed their supporters and stated on their aims, structure and future arrangements.

Leonid Parfenov

New social movement appeared – people want to vote responsibly, they understand that the country needs political competition. Fair elections are not who and how casts vote into the urn. Fair elections mean independent media, independent courts, working social institutes and equal opportunities for candidates. These are election rights, which the League is going to protect.

Tatyana Lazareva

Due to journalists, who came to the press conference, people will know how they can join us. I hope it is our first and the last press-conference, as we should stop talking and start acting. The League of Voters was established to unite people, who cannot live anymore as they have lived before. Even though I have never been a member of any political party, this organization is an organization of active people, who are ready to act. At first, people will consolidate at our web-site, and then we plan to move to wider audience. Our advantage is that all initiators are prominent people, and population trusts them.

Georgy Vasiliyev

The League of Voters is not an administration organization. There is no democratic centralism, no heads and commanders. The idea of the union is to help people to coordinate, to make our elections and the whole country fair. Coordination begins from approval of directions, in which the League is recommended to move.

First of all, the League recommends to participate in direct control under the elections as volunteers: observers, members of election commissions, analysts and lawyers. Secondly, we urge to pierce the anonymous veil from members of election commissions of all levels. People should know they are judges, and they are responsible for fair count of votes. Lists of members of election commissions should be published and we will send a letter to everyone: “We trust you! Be honest.” Moreover, meetings. On January 20th, it should be decided whether the demonstration on February 4th is approved or not.

We should organize cultural events, festivals of protest art. The League considers white color as its symbol, as it is color of tolerance, peace, readiness for dialogue and fairness. Financing support is provided by private citizens and charity funds.

Petr Shkumatov

The League of Voters is not a pre-election project. It was formed to pay respect to thousands of people, who took to the streets on December 10th as a protest against unfair elections. I don’t know even a period of Russian history, when elections were fair. Demonstrations had no political character, they were aimed at the fact that people want respect to their voices. We are aimed at recovery of the whole election process. We want our country has the culture of civil control under the election process.

Dmitry Ivanov

Cooperation with courts is very important. Recently General Prosecutor Yuri Chaika has stated that 50 administrative and 6 criminal cases were initiated as a result of the parliamentary elections. It is not much. No empty offences of members of election commissions are needed, video- and photomaterials, which can prove our truth, are needed.

Yuri Shevchuk

We do not deal with the policy directly. We are not members of some party. We are people, who want fair relations in the society. And we will succeed.