Alexei Navalny Rallies Russians for Anti-Putin Political Reform

Who is Alexei Navalny and why should we care if he is arrested or convicted in Moscow? Alexei Navalny, 38, has quickly developed a reputation as Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic, becoming the most prominent face of Russian opposition to President Putin. Like Mikhail Khodorkovsky before him, Navalny has already spent time in jail for embezzlement, one of the financial charges often levied against Russian opposition reform figures. And now, a Moscow judge has given him a suspended sentence in a new fraud case in which his brother has been imprisoned for three and a half years. The convictions are widely seen as a political vendetta against any opposition to Putin and his government. ~~~~~ Alexei Navalny has been a thorn in President Putin's side for several years, and he says that his never-ending legal troubles are the Kremlin's reprisals for organizing and leading protests. When he described Putin's United Russia party as "the party of crooks and thieves" during the 2011 parliamentary election campaign, the phrase took off in Russia and he became the unofficial leader of a new protest movement that carried over into the presidential campaign in 2012. Ahead of the 2011 election, in which he was not a candidate, Navalny urged his blog readers to vote for any party except United Russia, which he dubbed the "party of crooks and thieves." United Russia won the election, but with a much-reduced majority in a victory tarnished by widespread allegations of vote-rigging that prompted protests in Moscow and other Russian cities. Navalny was jailed for 15 days following his first organized protest on December 5, but he was released and spoke at the biggest post-election rally in Moscow on December 24, attended by an estimated 120,000 people. Putin easily won re-election as president in 2012 and Russia's powerful Investigative Committee then launched criminal investigations into Navalny's past activities, even questioning his credentials as a lawyer. When he was jailed in July 2013 for embezzlement in the city of Kirov, the five-year sentence was widely seen as political. But Navalny was uncustomarily released from prison to campaign for the Moscow mayoralty. Navalny was runner-up with 27% of the vote, behind Putin-ally Sergei Sobyanin. Navalny's showing was seen as such a success - he had no access to state TV, relying on the internet and word of mouth - that many believe his house arrest months later was Putin's punishment for Navalny's bold move. Despite his house arrest, he continued to speak out against the Kremlin, using social media, including his blog. When supporters created a Facebook page calling for protests to mark the latest Navalny trial conviction, thousands signed up and the page was taken down. A new page surfaced, attracting thousands more. ~~~~~ Alexei Navalny cannot match the public profile of former jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, arrested October 25, 2003, convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison. In 2010, he received a second prison term for stealing from his own Yukos oil company - the sentence interpreted by many as an instrument to keep him in jail until Putin won a third presidential term. Then, Putin inexpectedly pardoned Khodorkovsky and he was released from prison on December 20, 2013. But there are parallels between the two reform leaders -- when in 2010 a court convicted Khodorkovsky for a second time, the lengthy prison sentence was announced on 30 December, when most Russians were focused on the new year holiday; compare this with Navalny's second court verdict that had been due on 15 January 2015, but was inexplicably advanced by the court to 30 December. But, unlike Khodorkovsky, now based in Switzerland, Navalny has vowed to fight on in Russia. When he was jailed in 2013, he told the judge that he would fight on with his colleagues "to destroy the feudal state that's being built in Russia, destroy the system of government where 83% of national wealth is owned by a half percent of the population.'' President Putin's system is "sucking the blood out of Russia," Navalny said, tweeting to his supporters : "Don't sit around doing nothing. The toad won't get off the oil pipe by itself." The "toad" was what he called the Russian government in a post on his LiveJournal blog. That reaction and his use of Twitter are characteristic of his political style - reaching out to predominantly young followers on social media in sharp, sound bite language that mocks the establishment loyal to President Putin. Some Navalny critics in the anti-Putin camp say he flirts with Russian nationalism. He has spoken at ultra-nationalist events, causing concern among liberals. But, for their part, the Russian nationalists, too, are wary of his links with the US, after he spent a semester at Yale in 2010. Yet, all this aside, when the opposition elected its own leaders in October 2012, it was Alexei Navalny who won, ahead of veteran Putin critic and former chess champion Garry Kasparov, in a vote turnout of 81,801. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the opposition to Putin has been weakened by Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Opinion polls suggest strong Russian support for Putin's intervention. In March, Alexei Navalny called on the US and EU to target the Kremlin elite with sanctions, specifically Putin allies Gennady Timchenko, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg and Igor Sechin. While those figures have been targeted, others, such as oligarch Roman Abramovich, have not been. The question regularly posed about Navalny is whether he commands any support beyond the population centres of Moscow and other cities. But, Alexei Navalny must be commended for his courage in publicly facing Putin and United Russia in order to give moderate Russians a mechanism to protest and march for more freedom. Alexei Navalny and others like him are Russia's link with personal liberty and the right to speak freely and form political parties. Sadly, under Vladimir Putin, personal liberty and political diversity do not exist. Just today, police detained Alexei Navalny when he broke the terms of his house arrest to attend a protest of several thousand people just outside the Kremlin. Navalny, along with a group of his supporters, was rounded up by police as he approached the site of the protest. So, we should follow Navalny's activities and voice our support for him and for the millions of Russians who want a free Russia. It is, after all, Putin we oppose -- not the Russian people.