The establishing of "We, the Citizens!" Coalition has become a logical evolution and organizational strengthening of civil initiative of regional public associations’ network from all over Russia "Civil Society and Elections-99".
This very initiative first announced itself on 28th of April 1999, in Moscow, in the Andrei Sakharov Center Human Rights by public meeting of leaders of 26 voluntary associations, which resulted in signing the Declaration on joint actions for accomplishing major tasks of the year 1999. The tasks were:

• carrying out educational programs for voters,
• organizing civil supervision and control over the observance of regulations and procedures of electoral legislation,
• bringing citizens to the deliberate participation in the elections.

During the III convention of the Coalition (February, 2000) summarizing the work of civil observers during on the 1999 State Duma elections and on preparing the pre-term elections of the Russian Federation President, all the convention participants from regions have unanimously decided to continue the team-work in the format of united organization and to reorganize the existing civil associations network into the Coalition "We, the Citizens!"
The constituent conference was held on the 18th-20th of June 2000, in the Training-Center "Moskovski". The plenipotentiaries of public associations from 7 regions as well as international NGO's, established the Association of legal bodies - public organisations "Coalition "We, the Citizens!" and adopted its Charter and Regulations, elected the Coalition's Governing body - Coordination Council.