Civic Initiative

Civic Initiative (GRANI; russian: Гражданская инициатива; ГРАНИ; ''Grazhdanskaya initsiativa'', ''GRANI'') (Russian for "Facets") is a Russian centre-right political party. From 2018 to 2020, it was known as the Party of Changes (russian: Партия перемен; ''Partiya peremen''). The founder of the party is Andrey Nechayev, who served as Minister of Economic Development from 1992 to 1993.

History

Alexei Kudrin, who took part in the 2011–2013 Russian protests and wished to play the role of mediator between the opposition and the government, created in April 2012 the "Committee for Civil Initiatives", the name for which was invented by Nechayev and liked the former finance minister. However, Nechayev initially planned to create a party together with Kudrin, and he did not mind. Such a project was eventually rejected due to the fact that, after talking with Putin, Kudrin "decided that it was too early to (create) the party, we must confine ourselves to creating a committee." Nechayev, who had already gathered people by that time, nevertheless decided to create a new center-right party.

On July 27, 2012, the beginning of the creation of the party was announced, over the next half of the year, party representations were created in 50 regions. Prior to this, the legislative threshold for the number of parties was reduced from 40 thousand to 500, which greatly facilitated the registration procedure.

After the dissolution of the Union of Right Forces, part of the political spectrum remained free, and on the initiative of Nechayev, a group of like-minded people was again assembled, intending to create a new party with a liberal-democratic ideology.

Since the creation of the organizing committee, the party has often taken part in mass actions ("March of Millions", March against the Dima Yakovlev Law, "Right to Arms" rally, "May 6 Prisoners" rally, "For Free Business" rally, "Peace March ", The rally" For a Green Moscow ", etc.), in 2020 the party participated in the organization of the" March in memory of Boris Nemtsov».

On March 2, 2013, the founding congress of the party was held in the conference room of the Izmailovo hotel, at which the party's manifesto, resolution, party charter was adopted and an application for registration was submitted to the Ministry of Justice. On May 13, 2013 the party was registered.
 
On January 30, 2014, the party nominated the former Deputy Minister of Economy of Russia Ivan Starikov as a candidate for mayor of Novosibirsk. A few days before the vote, Starikov and a number of candidates withdrew from the elections in favor of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation candidate Anatoly Lokot, thanks to which he won. Later Starikov was appointed the representative of Novosibirsk in Moscow in the rank of vice-mayor.

Civic Initiative candidate Yury Vyazov won the early elections for the Head of the Bagansky District of the Novosibirsk Region, held on September 14, 2014, with 46.62% of the vote.

In 2015, the political council of the party included Vladimir Ryzhkov, Dmitry Nekrasov, Maxim Katz, Dmitry Gudkov and Gennady Gudkov. The party made a decision to nominate candidates for deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Kaluga Region. Among others, the candidates were the party leader Andrey Nechayev and Darya Besedina. As a result, they were not allowed before the elections.

On June 13, 2018, the Moscow branch of the party decided to nominate Dmitry Gudkov as a candidate for mayor of Moscow, but he could not pass the municipal filter, having submitted only 76 signatures out of 110 required to the Moscow City Electoral Commission.

In the 2018 Moscow Oblast gubernatorial election, the party supported the former deputy chairman of the Union of Right Forces faction in the State Duma of the III convocation, candidate Boris Nadezhdin, nominated by the Party of Growth. He got 93,223 votes (4.36%) and came in last place.

The party opposes election fraud, for free enterprise, and the modernization of the economic and social sphere of life, against the health care reform in Moscow, for the legalization of the possession of weapons, the party has strongly condemned the murder of Boris Nemtsov.

Most often, despite the collected signatures for the nomination of municipal deputies, party lists are denied registration from local election commissions under various pretexts. On November 25, 2019, the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding the suspension of the party's activities.

2016 Russian legislative election

Civic Initiative tried to unite with Yabloko for the sake of nominating a single list of candidates for the elections to the State Duma, however, due to the fact that the Yabloko people were delaying making a decision on this issue, the party joined forces in the election campaign with another right-wing party - “Party of Growth" The agreement on cooperation was signed by the chairmen of the two parties - business ombudsman Boris Titov and Andrey Nechayev.At the congress, the party approved a federal list of candidates for the September 18 elections, and also nominated candidates in 162 single-mandate constituencies. The federal list includes: Boris Titov, Irina Khakamada, Oksana Dmitriyeva, Dmitry Potapenko, Oleg Nikolaev, Ksenia Sokolova, Natalia Burykina, Andrey Nechayev, Ivan Grachev, Viktor Zvagelsky and Dmitry Porochkin.

Nechayev ran on the federal part of the party list and in the Leningrad single-mandate constituency in Moscow. Anatoly Chubais in his Facebook post called him one of the most professional candidates for the new Duma, and Maxim Katz said that if a good campaign is carried out, Nechayev has a chance to win.Alexei Kudrin also pinned his hopes on the "Party of Growth".

In a single constituency, the party won 679,030 votes (1.29%) and 1,171,259 votes (2.25%) in single-mandate constituencies, thus not holding a single candidate to the State Duma.

Boris Titov believes that the party has conducted the best of all election campaigns. He connects the election result with the existing strong apathy among entrepreneurs and people of liberal views.

Ksenia Sobchak's nomination for the presidential election

Ksenia Sobchak, declaring that she supports the Civic Initiative program, on December 23, 2017, joined her political council. At the same time, she was nominated by the party as a candidate for the post of President of Russia. Sobchak officially announced her nomination and explained that she considers participation in the elections to be the best legal way to express a protest and that she plans to become a kind of "against all". Nechayev agreed to be nominated with the expectation that the votes gained in the elections will help the party to acquire state funding, and the admission to the air of federal TV channels will increase recognition, also Nechayev was categorically against Sobchak's nomination if it would be "part of the Presidential Administration's election game".

Ksenia's nomination was supported by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Andrey Makarevich, Vladimir Pozner and Mikhail Kasyanov.

Ksenia's "123 Steps" election program was helped by Vladislav Inozemtsev, director of the Post-Industrial Society Research Center, and Andrey Nechayev, party leader, and Avdotya Smirnova (in the part related to inclusive society and provisions related to this area in the program) and lawyer Elena Lukyanova (provisions related to constitutional reform). In addition to these individuals, Sobchak's campaign headquarters included: one of the founders of the NTVtelevision company Igor Malashenko, who campaigned for Boris Yeltsin in 1996, director of the AIDS.Center Anton Krasovsky ( previously headed Mikhail Prokhorov's headquarters), a Belarusian political strategist who worked with the headquarters of the Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, Vitaly Shklyarov, director of external relations of the Snob project Ksenia Chudinova, director Sergei Kalvarsky, former editor-in-chief of the Political News Agency Stanislav Belkovsky, human rights activist Marina Litvinovich, blogger and former member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council Rustem Adagamov

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