Page 15 - Demo

Eastern Europe
June 30, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 15
Alexei Navalny:
potent sideshow pony in Russia’s one-horse race
bne IntelliNews
For all the media attention he receives as the cru- sader who would unmask the kleptocrat scoun- drels of Russia, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny remains a sideshow of Russia’s passage to a renewed Putin presidency. Yet he is also a wild card in Russia’s broader political life because of his ability to stir up large public rallies against the authorities.
The 41-year-old lawyer in recent years has emerged as a credible and (relatively) untainted figure of opposition, capable of bringing thou- sands of people onto the streets across the coun- try. On June 12, 15,000 to 20,000 people came to Pushkin Square in Moscow to attend an unauthor- ised rally at his urging.
Last year he unveiled a six-point manifesto fo- cused on battling corruption, boosting wages and pensions, and reforming the police and judiciary. It also advocates for greater powers to be given to regional authorities across Russia, better ties with Europe, and an end to Russia’s visa-free regime with countries within Central Asia.
But still less than 2% of the population see Navalny as presidential material, according
to polls, while Putin’s monolithic presence
in the Kremlin endures with record levels of support (82% as of March, based on data from the independent Levada Center). Navalny is also technically banned from holding public office because off an embezzlement conviction his supporters say was designed to knock him
out of the race.
More importantly, and in large measure due to his activism, sizeable protests are again a feature of the Russian landscape, in the provinces as well as Moscow and St Petersburg, creating a quandary for the Kremlin and government.
“The more harshly the authorities respond to them [the protests], the more seasoned their participants become: people are already getting used to being arrested, ignoring the mores and prohibitions that may have once stopped them,” writes Kommersant daily journalist Andrei Pert- sev. “As the confrontation between Navalny and the authorities escalates, he builds a nucleus of seasoned supporters who make the protests more popular and more consistent. It is this nucleus that is helping people answer that nagging ques- tion: ‘Who, if not Putin?’”
Who indeed? With little experience of Russian politics, few take Navalny’s Kremlin aspirations seriously for now. In a poll of 1,600 people nation- wide conducted in mid-April, Levada Center found that 48% would vote for Putin in a snap election, while Navalny garnered just 1% along with most other Russian political figures. Only ultranational- ist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov fared better, both with 3%.
The greatest other threat to Putin’s re-election is rather public apathy or indecisiveness, with 42% saying they don’t know who to vote for, or whether they would vote at all.
Public ire at corruption in resource-rich Russia has ebbed and flowed in the quarter century since