Political Uber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Political Uber is a project of Russian politicians Dmitry Gudkov and Maxim Katz to help young and promising opposition[1] candidates register for municipal elections and run election campaigns.[2]
The project gained popularity under this name because of the analogy with the popular taxi service.[3] The name embodies the maximum simplification of the user experience, including through the use of information technology with elements of gamification: for example, the overly complicated task of submitting documents for registration as a candidate in elections in the "political Uber" was presented in the form of a quest.[3][4][5]
Goals of the project
If you are against Putin, we will help you[6]
— Maxim Katz
According to Katz, access to participation in politics in Russia is too complicated, it is difficult even for entrepreneurs with money, not to mention less socially protected segments of the population, such as pensioners. According to Katz, such difficulties are created deliberately by the current government. The goal of "political Uber" is to eliminate such difficulties, to simplify access to elections for everyone.[4]
According to Gudkov, the project is focused on newcomers to politics who do not know how to collect signatures, fill out subscription lists, solve other similar problems, and only with the help of "uberization" of the process can they successfully pass registration and get a chance to be elected deputies.[5] Also, according to Gudkov, the project was focused on people who are dissatisfied with the fact that the authorities do not hear them. "Political Uber" offered such people a convenient infrastructure in order to nominate themselves as candidates, so that later, if elected, they would begin to influence the situation, first in their own regions, and then at the national level.[5] Opponents of Vladimir Putin[7] and supporters of the European path of development were invited to the project.[5]