Vladislav Davankov promised to turn his program into a reference book for the Russian mayor

Candidate for mayor of Moscow from the New People (NL) party Vladislav Davankov presented on Tuesday a 12-point election program. The politician explained the belated presentation by the fact that the party members “until the last” collected orders from the townspeople. According to their idea, the document should later be transformed into a “handbook” for the mayor of every Russian city – the party intends to use the theses from the Moscow program in the upcoming federal elections. At the same time, the political block of topics that opens the almanac turned out to be very liberal.

State Duma Vice Speaker Vladislav Davankov accompanied the presentation of the program with a triple gratitude to his comrades-in-arms: “I am not the hero of the occasion, but you are the people who, with me and even without me, collected proposals and heard what people were saying.” The deputy explained the late release of the document by the fact that he and his team “collected proposals” from Muscovites to the last, which eventually formed the basis of the program. But this political sprint was not in vain, the candidate assured. Firstly, he himself “finally began to be recognized on the streets” and even wondered where, in fact, you can watch his program.

Secondly, the final version of the document was positively assessed by the leader of the NL Alexei Nechaev, Mr. Davankov added not without pride: “He said that this is the best program he has seen, and that it is even cooler than our program for the elections to the State Duma was.”

The party members intend to use the Moscow theses in the future as well. “We are not running out of elections,” recalled the vice speaker. “Therefore, we decided to make a big book out of this program and give it to all mayors: this will be an irreparable benefit that we will bring not only to Moscow, but to all of Russia.” The politician is sure that the orders collected in the capital are “suitable for any city, because Moscow is a whole gardarika, a city of cities: it has its own Chita, its own Murmansk.”

The activists overwhelmed with gratitude continued to play for the candidate at the presentation of the program: all 12 chapters were presented by the party members responsible for the topics. “The basis of the foundations is the political system,” the head of the public headquarters, Stanislav Druzhinin, outlined the priority. “We are witnessing its crisis in Moscow and the country.” He lamented that the “openness and turnover of power” declared by the authorities was in fact not, and officials found themselves in an emphatically privileged position. That is why the NL and its candidate, according to Mr. Druzhinin, intend to achieve “that there be open, competitive elections, that municipalities have more power, and that the executive branch be accountable to the legislative branch.” Party members also advocate self-organizing communities, micro-referendums, the expansion of parliamentary discussion (and at the same time the return of a mixed electoral system to the now purely single-mandate Moscow City Duma) and other democratic institutions and procedures. “Without a transparent political system, we cannot continue to live and develop normally,” Stanislav Druzhinin emphasized and unexpectedly concluded: “If you choose yourself, choose Davankov, a candidate for mayor of Moscow.”

Another sadness, from which, according to party members, almost all social troubles originate, is the uncontrolled and inconsistent with the townspeople compact building.

The NL also devoted a separate chapter to the fight against it. In addition, the activists presented their views on demography, education, housing and communal services, transport, ecology, improvement, digital development and the economy. There were plans to subsidize loans for small and medium-sized businesses, send free psychologists to families, let volunteers go to universities, appoint an environmental ombudsman, train 100,000 IT women, that is, the program absorbed projects and proposals on almost any urban topic. The party members themselves are immediately ready to take up the implementation of the promised.

Political scientist Konstantin Kalachev considers the presentation of the program at the end of the campaign to be logical: “The first and the last are remembered.” Having delayed the release, the IP candidate managed to collect proposals and transfer the program to the “people’s mode”, the expert explains. He explains the noticeable “democratic tilt” of the document by an appeal to the democratic voter in an attempt to find new allies: “Davankov sees such a niche for himself.” According to Mr. Kalachev, the NL nominee is interested not only in the electorate of Yabloko, but also “those who once voted for Alexei Navalny.” The political scientist calls such townspeople “incredulous”, but suggests that, although some of them will “vote with their feet”, some part, probably, Mr. Davankov will be able to “intercept”. “Obviously, these elections are a rehearsal for the NL before the federal ones, and the party will exploit the topic of regional and local self-government more than once,” sums up Konstantin Kalachev.

Grigory Leiba