There’s surely no room for dissent in Putin’s Russia

The legal odyssey of Russia’s best-known opposition leader, anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, has been mindbogglingly complicated, full of twists and turns. Nevertheless, experts say, it has wound up with a simple and totally predictable political result. Thanks to a recent regional court’s ruling that upheld Navalny’s embezzlement conviction and handed him a fiveyear suspended sentence, it will be almost impossible for him to run against President Vladmir Putin, or his anointed successor, in elections in March 2018.

That’s significant because unlike much of Russia’s fragmented and fractious opposition — especially the liberals who are associated in the public mind with the disastrous 1990s — Navalny seemed to be a new type of insurgent politician who could unite anti-Kremlin support among a wide range of Russians. He certainly demonstrated this when he was allowed to run for Moscow mayor in late 2013 against the Kremlin’s choice, Sergei Sobyanin, and stunned by winning 27 per cent of the vote.

“Navalny was able to consolidate all Moscow voters who were against the authorities in general and Sobyanin in particular,” says Nikolai Petrov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics at Moscow’s National Research University. “In Moscow, that’s a lot of people. Not just liberals and people of the creative class, but many middle-class professionals and others who heard his anticorruption message.”

Moreover, Navalny’s conviction reveals a lot about how Putin’s Russia works, by using the courts to weed and manicure Russia’s heavily stage-managed political system. Well known for his anticorruption crusade, Navalny came to political prominence amid mass street demonstrations against alleged fraud in 2011 parliamentary elections. He quickly took a leadership role, spent time in prison, and remained popular after the protest died down.

Navalny’s conviction on Wednesday seems to conclude a long-running affair that began with his trial and conviction for embezzling proceeds from timber sales while acting as an adviser to the governor of Kirov region in 2009. The case had been dismissed, but revived in 2013 when he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, which was later reduced to a suspended sentence. But authorities permitted Navalny to run in the Moscow mayoral polls — analysts suggest in order to create the impression of competition for Sobyanin — in which he surprised with the strong showing that nearly forced Sobyanin into a runoff vote.

“It was one thing to let Navalny run in Moscow, but is it worth the risk to allow him to participate in the presidential elections?” asks Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Mercator Group, an independent Moscow think tank.

Navalny appealed his sentence to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled a year ago that his trial had not been fair. Russia’s Supreme Court subsequently overturned the 2013 conviction, which in Russia means the case goes back to the original court for review. The conviction closes that circle, and ensures that he will not be able to run in the upcoming presidential polls, barring a decision by the Supreme Court to allow that.

Yet, most experts say that Navalny’s popularity has been on the wane in any case, in part due to the surge in pro-Putin patriotism since the Ukraine crisis began about three years ago.

— The Christian Science Monitor

Navalny seemed to be a new type of insurgent politician who could unite anti-Kremlin support among a wide range of Russians