Alexey Navalny unveils his presidential campaign platform
A year after announcing his intention to run for president, opposition politician Alexey Navalny published his campaign platform this Wednesday. In a video shared on YouTube, Navalny explained that his main goals as president would be establishing a minimum wage at 144 rubles ($2.45) an hour, lowering the mortgage rate from 11 percent to two percent, and doubling federal spending on healthcare and education.
Navalny says his presidency would finance these reforms by fighting corruption, reducing the state bureaucracy, and cutting subsidies to state corporations. Navalny also wants to boost the federal budget by raising taxes on the gas sector and on dividends paid by state companies.
Alexey Navalny's presidential campaign platform
Alexey Navalny
Before December 13, Navalny’s campaign had only published his platform’s “basic tenets.”
In late 2016, Alexey Navalny announced that he would run for president in Russia’s March 2018 election. For the past year, he has conducted Russia’s most visible and aggressive presidential campaign, though federal election officials say they will refuse to register Navalny’s candidacy because of laws prohibiting convicted felons from running for elected office within 10 years of any criminal sentence. Navalny says this restriction is unconstitutional.
In early December, Vladimir Putin finally announced his plans to run for reelection. The race will likely include TV celebrity Ksenia Sobchak, “Yabloko” founder Grigory Yavlinsky, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and others.