Who is Navalny

source: Libération, CheckNews

authors: Manuel Alaver and Xavier Condamine September 18, 2020 

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Why is Alexei Navalny presented as the main opponent to Vladimir Putin?

Alexei Navalny being removed by Russian police during a demonstration against Vladimir Putin, May 5, 2018. AP photo 

The political activist, recovering in Germany after being the victim of poisoning, represents an opposition outside the Russian political system.

Question asked by Jupilune on 09/15/2020

Hello,

You ask us about the media coverage of Alexey Navalny, a Russian political activist opposed to President Vladimir Putin. Recently hospitalized in Russia and then in Germany after feeling unwell during a commercial flight to Siberia on August 20, the political activist was placed in an artificial coma from which he recovered two weeks later. Analyzes carried out by laboratories in Germany, Sweden and France concluded that the opponent had been poisoned with Novichok, a military chemical agent developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, which Russian authorities deny.

Your question refers to his status as the " main opponent " to the Kremlin as attributed to him by several Western media, including the New York Times , France Info and  Liberation . In Le Monde , he is described in particular as " leader of the Russian opposition " and in Le Figaro " as the number one opponent to Vladimir Poutine ".

Opponent outside the system

To understand what qualifies Navalny as a figure of the opposition, it is necessary to contextualize the Russian political and democratic situation. " Russia is a picture-window democracy ," says Anna Colin Lebedev, lecturer in Political Science, specialist in post-Soviet societies at the University of Paris-Nanterre.

Indeed, there are two oppositions in Russia. The first is an opposition within the system, authorized and institutionalized, represented by parties such as the Russian Communist Party or the nationalist party LPDR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), which have no real influence. " These political parties have institutional representation, they are part of an opposition which '' does not disturb ' the powers in place, " explains the specialist.

The second, unlike these facade opposition parties, is outside the system, and does not have access to political bodies such as the Duma (lower house of the Russian Parliament). This is  Alexeï Navalny's realm.

Indeed, the 44-year-old activist cannot be considered an opponent to the Russian president  at elections. "He was never authorized to compete in the presidential election against Vladimir Poutine" , points out Anna Colin Lebedev. Since 2017, Alexeï Navalny has been kept out of the political equation by the Russian Central Election Commission, which declared him ineligible until 2028, following several court convictions for embezzlement and illegal demonstrations. The only exception in his career was the Moscow municipal election, where he ran in 2013. Defeated by the outgoing mayor, Navalny ended up in second position.

"At the polls, we cannot say that he is the main opponent"

" It is the Western media which invented this expression, because in the ballot box, one cannot say that he is the main opponent ", specifies Veronika Dorman, journalist at Liberation , specialist in Russia and who claims the use of this formulation to designate the lawyer by profession.

As a candidate outside the system, he is absent from the Russian television media, controlled by the power brokers, explain the specialists. " Navalny only has access to a small private cable channel ", mentions Cécile Vaissié, professor of Russian studies at the University of Rennes-II.

On the power side, " Vladimir Poutine has never mentioned Navalny's name in public, " said Julien Nocetti, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) and specialist in Russia. “ In general, for Putin, everything that comes from civil society is not too important, it is often outside his field of interest, ” says Anna Colin Lebedev. A way of making the opposition invisible.

“Most recognizable” figure

The description of Navalny as the main opponent is quite recent. The reputation of this lawyer, who first became known thanks to his punching actions against corruption, has thus taken on a new dimension in recent years. For Anna Colin Lebedev, it is in particular thanks to his calls for “ intelligent voting ” that he was able to make himself known to Russian voters and reverse his lack of notoriety. This strategy consists of supporting the candidate best placed against the presidential party in local and regional elections in order to remove the candidate from power. Launched last year, it saw the opposition  win almost half of the seatsin local elections in Moscow in September 2019. Last week, Navalny's allies even achieved symbolic victories in a regional election in Siberia, Tomsk and Novosibirsk, the country's third largest city, where for the first time they had been able to present candidates, according to Le Monde .

Today, " he is the most recognizable figure of the opposition ", says Anna Colin Lebedev. Above all, "he has been the most determined for almost ten years to denounce the abuses of the Putin system and his entourage ", specifies Julien Nocetti.

Moreover, Navalny is one of the last opponents still active in Russia. "The opposition has been meager since the assassination of Boris Nemtsov and the exile of Kasparov" , explains Julien Nocetti. Nemtsov, a former Putin minister who was in opposition, was shot dead in 2015 in Moscow. As for Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion; he went into exile in June 2013 in the United States after making a political commitment against Vladimir Putin.

Awareness deficit within Russia

However, we must be " careful not to overestimate the levers of his political influence ", tempers Julien Nocetti. In Russia, Alexeï Navalny still suffers from a lack of notoriety. " One in two Russians does not know him, " said Anna Colin Lebedev, citing a survey by the Levada public opinion research center , an independent body. According to this document, barely 10% of those polled were ready to vote for him in the 2018 presidential election.

The media coverage surrounding his poisoning, unanimously denounced by the G7 foreign ministers , gives him another stature. " It makes o fhim the opponent that we wanted to destroy without success, it is a kind of consecration ", analyzes Veronika Dorman.

Regards,

Manuel Alaver , Xavier Condamine