Russia frees opposition head as race to the Kremlin begins
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was yesterday released after 20 days in jail for organising protests against president Vladimir Putin.
Mr Navalny, 41, who has declared he will stand for president next year, was released in a secret location in Moscow to avoid media attention.
“Hi. I’m out,” the lawyer wrote on Instagram, posting a picture of himself on a street. A photographer working for his team posted photos of him meeting colleagues at the office of his anti-corruption foundation.
The Kremlin race has heated up while Mr Navalny was behind bars, with television star Ksenia Sobchak declaring herself a candidate to replace Mr Putin.
Mr Navalny said he was “ready to work” and was preparing yesterday to meet supporters at a rally in the southern city of Astrakhan. The event in the city 1,300 kilometres southeast of Moscow had been approved by the authorities.
He wrote jokingly that while in jail he had read 20 books, learnt a few words of the Kyrgyz language and drank 80 litres of tea.
Earlier yesterday, supporters hung a banner from a bridge close to the Kremlin reading: “It’s time to get rid of Putin and time to elect Navalny.”
Mr Navalny informally launched a presidential bid in December last year and has since opened campaign offices and held rallies around the country. This year, he has served sentences of 15 days and 25 days in jail for organising unauthorised anti-Putin demonstrations.
During his latest jail term, Mr Navalny’s supporters held rallies on Mr Putin’s birthday, October 7 — where 270 were detained nationwide. He has faced a stream of official bans on public meetings, violent attacks on him and his supporters and vandalism of his offices.
Mr Navalny has yet to comment on Ms Sobchak’s presidential candidature but had previously condemned rumours of her candidacy, saying this was a “rather disgusting Kremlin game” and calling her a “liberal laughing stock”.
Ms Sobchak, 35, launched her bid to stand on Wednesday and calls herself “the candidate against all”. She is the daughter of Mr Putin’s late mentor, Anatoly Sobchak.
The presidential race has yet to begin officially and Mr Putin has not yet declared that he will stand in the elections next March. He is expected to seek and win a six-year term that would extend his rule till 2024.
Ms Sobchak said she would back Mr Navalny’s bid to be included in the race after electoral authorities said his suspended sentence for fraud made him ineligible to stand until 2028. Many liberals see her as a Kremlin-backed spoiler candidate brought in to give the race a veneer of opposition.
Mr Putin worked closely with her father when he was a liberal St Petersburg mayor and has acknowledged his importance as a mentor.
Russian media have focused on Ms Sobchak’s past as host of the reality show Dom-2, or
House-2, where contestants have to form couples, and of
Russia’s Next Top Model. “She’s going to work according to her profession at the elections: in order to turn non-contested presidential pseudo-polls into the biggest show of 2018,” an editorial in the Vedomosti business daily said on Friday.
Mr Navalny sometimes shared a podium with Ms Sobchak at mass rallies against Mr Putin in 2011 and 2012. While he wowed crowds with punchy oratory, Ms Sobchak faced a hostile audience who doubted her sudden backing of opposition causes.
But she paid a price for her opposition campaigning by losing lucrative television work and now hosts a show on the independent Dozhd TV channel.
Forbes’ Russian edition estimates Ms Sobchak’s net worth at US$2.1 million (Dh7.7m). She is set to unveil her platform in Moscow tomorrow.