Alexei Navalny announced the launch of an election campaign “against the war – and against Putin”.
He called the project to convey his point of view a “truth machine”. According to Navalny, campaign contributors will turn people against the war “according to the laws and techniques of good election campaigns”, conducting polls, targeting groups of people, matching each group, identifying those who waver and persuading them to change their minds. Among other things, the politician is going to appeal to “hundreds of thousands of mobilized people who have seen Putin’s war as it is with their own eyes”.
Navalny said that he intends to use “new opportunities” – offshore and decentralized call centers, campaigning via messenger and “in the Kremlin-controlled social networks”.
“A crude description of the campaign machine we’re going to build is as follows: it’s a system which allows you (the canvassers) to join it at any convenient time from anywhere and, while remaining anonymous if you wish, communicate by voice or text with voters within Russia who meet the required parameters – gender, age, city, occupation, and so forth. The system teaches you how to campaign, drawing on previous experience, suggesting a scheme of conversation, facts and phrases. In a sense it’s like creating and training artificial intelligence”, he said.
Navalny urged IT specialists, marketers, sociologists, political scientists and volunteer agitators to join the project.
Navalny spoke about his project on the day of the first court hearing in the new “extremist” case against him.
