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03/09/2010
Kommersant-Vlast
No. 8
March 1, 2010
[President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili denounces Putin for having
violated the territorial integrity of Georgia and believes the new
generation of Georgians would support his current course after 2013,
no matter who will become a new president of Georgia]
Eighteen months after the conflict in South Ossetia, there is
still a cold war period in Moscow-Tbilisi relations. Russian
authorities claim that President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili is a
criminal and an outcast, while the latter dubs them as occupants.
Our correspondent met with the Georgian leader and discovered that
the latter did not believe that Georgia lost the August war.
Q. - The Russian federal authorities unequivocally declared
that they would not deal either with Georgia's current regime or you
personally. Does that mean that nothing would ever change in
Russian-Georgian relations up until 2013, the year when Mikhail
Saakashvili's presidential term will be over?
A. - And who told them that Georgia's current authorities would
only last until 2013? It is correct that I will not run for
presidency any more. But this does not mean in the least that the
ideology I personify will not be top priority for the population of
Georgia any longer. Some other person will replace Saakashvili. But
the course will not change. Secondly, it is important to understand
that a personality may be important, that is true, but the current
ideology has been created already, the new generation already
exists, and that cannot be changed. There were meetings and
demonstrations, but at least 50% of Georgia's population supported
my course during all those years. Currently, they are some 70% of
the population and even more. Our country is consolidated. Our
course for liberal economy, democracy, free and open society will
only strengthen.
Q. - After you were elected President, you declared unification
of the country as a main objective. In four years after that
declaration, Georgia lost Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It seemed, for
ever...
A. - Only perfunctory observers may support that view. I am
quite confident that the Kremlin has a different impression. If it
did support that view, it would have never displayed so much concern
over Georgia's current events. No matter how eagerly the Kremlin
persuades itself that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are another Kosovo,
they are no Kosovo. There is no population in South Ossetia, and
there is no state without population. This is a fiction, a phantom
state. Certainly, it is possible that a stuntman would act as South
Ossetian President, and the Kremlin would receive him thrice a year
on the Kremlin's red carpet. Nevertheless, this cannot change
anything in South Ossetia that has been devoid of population. Before
2008, there remained half of the population that lived there in the
1990's in South Ossetia. In 2008, there were only 50,000 people
left. Currently, the population of South Ossetia is 10,000 people,
and no prospects for its growth. That small gorge in the mountains
is an organic part of Georgia.
As for Abkhazia, it is a depopulated and occupied zone. Even if
there were very slim chances for international legalization of that
state before, with the Russian occupation they lost those chances.
There cannot be statehood there where there is occupation. If
Abkhazia would have been able to survive without Russian troops, we
could have claimed we lost it altogether. It is not the problem of
our losing Abkhazia, but the problem of the Kremlin's realization
that it would lose all those territories, and the remaining
territories, too, if it does not take in Georgia as a whole. That is
why the Kremlin is currently focused on that objective.
Q. - Could Georgia follow into the footsteps of Serbia?
Apparently, Belgrade has put up with its loss of Kosovo and headed
for the European Union.
A. - In Kosovo Milosevic conducted ethnic cleanups. In our
country, the Russian state conducted such a cleanup; its result is
500,000 refugees. If some country be Kosovo, that would be us. We
have radically facilitated the Georgia-EU visa regime. In the
nearest future it will be practically visa-free. We have been
heading for a free trade regime with the European Union. We have
already introduced a free-trade regime with Turkey and Kuwait. We
also work with the US in that direction. Georgia diversified, and
that was not our choice. If one were being driven away, one should
look for a different refuge. As for us, we were not only driven
away, but also beaten up.
Q. - Anyhow, there is a new reality on the region, and you
participated in its creation. According to that new reality,
relations between the Russian Federation and Georgia have been
broken off, and the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia under
Georgia's jurisdiction is impossible.
A. - Russia attempted to legalize its military presence in
those regions through Georgia's de-legitimatizing as a state, but
failed to. Moscow was surprised very much with the extent of its
failure. Any occupation ends sooner or later, especially taking
Russia's current problems. I would not be as optimistic, if it were
a solid country with development prospects, such as China or the US.
However, we deal with the country that is deeply vulnerable in all
respects and parameters. If Russians believe that they have resolved
the problem of Georgia, why are they so concerned about Georgia? Why
do they make declarations regarding Georgia several times a week? My
press secretary jokes that she is already sick and tired of
answering declarations of great leaders of the great power. The fact
that the Kremlin refers so repeatedly to Georgia means it is well
aware of the current state of the Russian country, just like in its
time the KGB realized quite clearly that the USSR was nearing its
collapse. I am personally for a strong Russia. However, we would
prefer to see it democratic and liberal. If a new reality is
increased presence of the Russian troops, and an ethnic cleanup, its
legal status is fake. This is a far-reaching policy. Today the
Kremlin openly wages the policy of which the USSR only dreamed,
including Russia's new military doctrine presupposing a preventive
nuclear strike, or the law legalizing penetration a foreign
country's territory. Certainly, this is something new.
Q. - Why do you think that Russia is vulnerable?
A. - I believe that the country dependent on oil prices cannot
have long-term development prospects. Before the war in Georgia,
Putin declared that even steel for Russian arms had to be home-made.
That was a typical approach of a Stalinist. Currently, everything
has diametrically changed, and Russia depends on purchasing weapons
from Israel and France. This means that Russia is not only a raw
material source for the remaining world, but its defense sphere is
absolutely dependent on other countries' technologies. A great power
cannot be dependent on arms deliveries from other countries! That is
an official proof that Russia is no longer a great power.
Q. - In her report Heidi Tagliavini wrote that Georgia was the
first to deliver a strike.
A. - Tagliavini did not write that, Tagliavini told that. Did
you read her report in full? I strongly recommend that you do. Why
do you think Lavrov mentions so rarely that report? Why did Moscow
forget about it so quickly? Because the report is very clear and
precise, it contains neither a single word to condemn Georgia, nor
an allegation that Georgia was the first to launch that war. .
Q. - Moscow and Tbilisi interpret that report each in its own
way.
A. - According to that report, a large-scale conflict followed
immediately Georgia's strike against Tskhinval, which in turn
followed a series of provocations and shootings from several months
after Russian troops had entered that territory. According to report
authors, though Russian troops entered Tskhinval that was not a
technical intervention. Certainly, that is the most controversial
part of the report. Being international law specialist, I do not
understand how that could be dubbed otherwise than an intrusion. Or
that was kind of military tourism and they collected mushrooms
there?
Q. - Over eighteen months have passed after that war. In your
opinion, was the war inevitable?
A. - It would have been possible to avoid it, if the
international community had stopped Putin, as it did in 2006.
Q. - Can you personally say that you did your best to avoid
that war?
A. - I get back repeatedly to that issue. I have been thinking
it over and over. I believe I did practically all I could. I dare
say I did everything I could. In 2006, when Putin was ready to
attack Georgia for the first time, both the tough stance of the EU
summit in Finland and the US stopped him. In 2008, a wrong signal
was sent to Putin at the NATO summit and the US-Russian summit in
Sochi. In any case, after the Sochi summit Putin decided no one
would interfere, and he was 80% right.
Q. - You mentioned earlier that you were not going to quit
politics after 2013. What will you do then? Will you try to turn
Georgia into a parliamentary republic?
A. - The last thing for me to do will be adapting the
Constitution to suit myself. I believe that a strong presidential
authority is crucial for Georgia. Moreover, each person has his/her
own potential. By 2013, I would exhaust my potential as a national
leader. Maybe, in several years I would restore my potential, but
currently I do not know. It is correct that there is a limit on the
number of presidential terms. I do not believe Georgia would ever
become a parliamentary republic. Currently we are facing a number of
challenges. Our reforms require concentrated power, so that an
opposition group would be unable to bloc their implementation.
However, any authority must be counterbalanced with free press and
other liberties. A free country cannot exist without that
prerequisite.
No. 8
March 1, 2010
"MYSELF, I AM PERSONALLY FOR A STRONG RUSSIA"
Interview of President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili
Author: Vladimir Soloviev[President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili denounces Putin for having
violated the territorial integrity of Georgia and believes the new
generation of Georgians would support his current course after 2013,
no matter who will become a new president of Georgia]
Eighteen months after the conflict in South Ossetia, there is
still a cold war period in Moscow-Tbilisi relations. Russian
authorities claim that President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili is a
criminal and an outcast, while the latter dubs them as occupants.
Our correspondent met with the Georgian leader and discovered that
the latter did not believe that Georgia lost the August war.
Q. - The Russian federal authorities unequivocally declared
that they would not deal either with Georgia's current regime or you
personally. Does that mean that nothing would ever change in
Russian-Georgian relations up until 2013, the year when Mikhail
Saakashvili's presidential term will be over?
A. - And who told them that Georgia's current authorities would
only last until 2013? It is correct that I will not run for
presidency any more. But this does not mean in the least that the
ideology I personify will not be top priority for the population of
Georgia any longer. Some other person will replace Saakashvili. But
the course will not change. Secondly, it is important to understand
that a personality may be important, that is true, but the current
ideology has been created already, the new generation already
exists, and that cannot be changed. There were meetings and
demonstrations, but at least 50% of Georgia's population supported
my course during all those years. Currently, they are some 70% of
the population and even more. Our country is consolidated. Our
course for liberal economy, democracy, free and open society will
only strengthen.
Q. - After you were elected President, you declared unification
of the country as a main objective. In four years after that
declaration, Georgia lost Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It seemed, for
ever...
A. - Only perfunctory observers may support that view. I am
quite confident that the Kremlin has a different impression. If it
did support that view, it would have never displayed so much concern
over Georgia's current events. No matter how eagerly the Kremlin
persuades itself that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are another Kosovo,
they are no Kosovo. There is no population in South Ossetia, and
there is no state without population. This is a fiction, a phantom
state. Certainly, it is possible that a stuntman would act as South
Ossetian President, and the Kremlin would receive him thrice a year
on the Kremlin's red carpet. Nevertheless, this cannot change
anything in South Ossetia that has been devoid of population. Before
2008, there remained half of the population that lived there in the
1990's in South Ossetia. In 2008, there were only 50,000 people
left. Currently, the population of South Ossetia is 10,000 people,
and no prospects for its growth. That small gorge in the mountains
is an organic part of Georgia.
As for Abkhazia, it is a depopulated and occupied zone. Even if
there were very slim chances for international legalization of that
state before, with the Russian occupation they lost those chances.
There cannot be statehood there where there is occupation. If
Abkhazia would have been able to survive without Russian troops, we
could have claimed we lost it altogether. It is not the problem of
our losing Abkhazia, but the problem of the Kremlin's realization
that it would lose all those territories, and the remaining
territories, too, if it does not take in Georgia as a whole. That is
why the Kremlin is currently focused on that objective.
Q. - Could Georgia follow into the footsteps of Serbia?
Apparently, Belgrade has put up with its loss of Kosovo and headed
for the European Union.
A. - In Kosovo Milosevic conducted ethnic cleanups. In our
country, the Russian state conducted such a cleanup; its result is
500,000 refugees. If some country be Kosovo, that would be us. We
have radically facilitated the Georgia-EU visa regime. In the
nearest future it will be practically visa-free. We have been
heading for a free trade regime with the European Union. We have
already introduced a free-trade regime with Turkey and Kuwait. We
also work with the US in that direction. Georgia diversified, and
that was not our choice. If one were being driven away, one should
look for a different refuge. As for us, we were not only driven
away, but also beaten up.
Q. - Anyhow, there is a new reality on the region, and you
participated in its creation. According to that new reality,
relations between the Russian Federation and Georgia have been
broken off, and the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia under
Georgia's jurisdiction is impossible.
A. - Russia attempted to legalize its military presence in
those regions through Georgia's de-legitimatizing as a state, but
failed to. Moscow was surprised very much with the extent of its
failure. Any occupation ends sooner or later, especially taking
Russia's current problems. I would not be as optimistic, if it were
a solid country with development prospects, such as China or the US.
However, we deal with the country that is deeply vulnerable in all
respects and parameters. If Russians believe that they have resolved
the problem of Georgia, why are they so concerned about Georgia? Why
do they make declarations regarding Georgia several times a week? My
press secretary jokes that she is already sick and tired of
answering declarations of great leaders of the great power. The fact
that the Kremlin refers so repeatedly to Georgia means it is well
aware of the current state of the Russian country, just like in its
time the KGB realized quite clearly that the USSR was nearing its
collapse. I am personally for a strong Russia. However, we would
prefer to see it democratic and liberal. If a new reality is
increased presence of the Russian troops, and an ethnic cleanup, its
legal status is fake. This is a far-reaching policy. Today the
Kremlin openly wages the policy of which the USSR only dreamed,
including Russia's new military doctrine presupposing a preventive
nuclear strike, or the law legalizing penetration a foreign
country's territory. Certainly, this is something new.
Q. - Why do you think that Russia is vulnerable?
A. - I believe that the country dependent on oil prices cannot
have long-term development prospects. Before the war in Georgia,
Putin declared that even steel for Russian arms had to be home-made.
That was a typical approach of a Stalinist. Currently, everything
has diametrically changed, and Russia depends on purchasing weapons
from Israel and France. This means that Russia is not only a raw
material source for the remaining world, but its defense sphere is
absolutely dependent on other countries' technologies. A great power
cannot be dependent on arms deliveries from other countries! That is
an official proof that Russia is no longer a great power.
Q. - In her report Heidi Tagliavini wrote that Georgia was the
first to deliver a strike.
A. - Tagliavini did not write that, Tagliavini told that. Did
you read her report in full? I strongly recommend that you do. Why
do you think Lavrov mentions so rarely that report? Why did Moscow
forget about it so quickly? Because the report is very clear and
precise, it contains neither a single word to condemn Georgia, nor
an allegation that Georgia was the first to launch that war. .
Q. - Moscow and Tbilisi interpret that report each in its own
way.
A. - According to that report, a large-scale conflict followed
immediately Georgia's strike against Tskhinval, which in turn
followed a series of provocations and shootings from several months
after Russian troops had entered that territory. According to report
authors, though Russian troops entered Tskhinval that was not a
technical intervention. Certainly, that is the most controversial
part of the report. Being international law specialist, I do not
understand how that could be dubbed otherwise than an intrusion. Or
that was kind of military tourism and they collected mushrooms
there?
Q. - Over eighteen months have passed after that war. In your
opinion, was the war inevitable?
A. - It would have been possible to avoid it, if the
international community had stopped Putin, as it did in 2006.
Q. - Can you personally say that you did your best to avoid
that war?
A. - I get back repeatedly to that issue. I have been thinking
it over and over. I believe I did practically all I could. I dare
say I did everything I could. In 2006, when Putin was ready to
attack Georgia for the first time, both the tough stance of the EU
summit in Finland and the US stopped him. In 2008, a wrong signal
was sent to Putin at the NATO summit and the US-Russian summit in
Sochi. In any case, after the Sochi summit Putin decided no one
would interfere, and he was 80% right.
Q. - You mentioned earlier that you were not going to quit
politics after 2013. What will you do then? Will you try to turn
Georgia into a parliamentary republic?
A. - The last thing for me to do will be adapting the
Constitution to suit myself. I believe that a strong presidential
authority is crucial for Georgia. Moreover, each person has his/her
own potential. By 2013, I would exhaust my potential as a national
leader. Maybe, in several years I would restore my potential, but
currently I do not know. It is correct that there is a limit on the
number of presidential terms. I do not believe Georgia would ever
become a parliamentary republic. Currently we are facing a number of
challenges. Our reforms require concentrated power, so that an
opposition group would be unable to bloc their implementation.
However, any authority must be counterbalanced with free press and
other liberties. A free country cannot exist without that
prerequisite.
[More]
03/09/2010
Time.com
March 9, 2010
When the state-friendly Russian oil company Surgutneftegas held its annual shareholders meeting in the Siberian city of Surgut two years ago, the proceedings in the shabby auditorium started off as tightly scripted as a Politburo meeting. That is, until the moderator called for questions and Alexei Navalny took the stage. In front of some 300 stunned shareholders, Navalny, who owned about $2,000 worth of stock in the company, grilled senior management for several minutes about the company's minuscule dividends and opaque ownership. When he finished, there was a brief silence and then an unexpected burst of applause from a small group of shareholders in the back of the hall. The company directors were visibly flustered, said a Russian journalist present at the meeting. "They clearly weren't accustomed to being asked questions like that," the journalist said on condition of anonymity, citing company policy about speaking to other media. "They looked really uncomfortable."
Asking uncomfortable questions is what Navalny does best. An erstwhile activist in Russia's marginalized opposition movement, Navalny, 33, has eschewed electoral politics to focus his formidable energies on investigating companies owned by the Russian government and its minions. And in the two years since he crashed that shareholders meeting in Surgut, he has arguably become Russia's most relevant political renegade. He is demonstrating that there may be a tool more effective than the ballot box in keeping Russia's ruling class in check: stock.
A corporate lawyer with a degree in financial markets, Navalny has spent the past three years snapping up small stakes in publicly traded state-owned companies, many of which have senior government officials on their boards. Public listings provide these firms with crucial capital and international legitimacy, but in exchange, they're forced to adhere to a modicum of transparency that is absent from Russian politics. This is where Navalny comes in. Exploiting his status as a part owner, he harasses senior management with questions about how their actions may be affecting the bottom line. "All you need is one share to get into the room with these guys," Navalny says.
Navalny's transparency drives have earned him legions of admirers in the Russian blogosphere, the country's most freewheeling forum for political discussion, and among the independent-minded media. The respected Russian business daily Vedomosti named Navalny its "Private Individual of the Year" for 2009, saying he sets a "personal example proving it's possible for citizens to defend their rights." "While professional investors solve their problems quietly, this everyman, without status or power, is trying to fight the system," the paper wrote of Navalny. Sergei Guriev, dean of Moscow's New Economic School and an independent board member of Sberbank, a state-owned company in which Navalny has stock, says the lawyer's focus is a logical avenue of dissent for politically minded young people who are unable to crack into Russia's rigidly controlled political landscape. "His generation of opposition politicians has been denied a career in politics," he says. "They may have to wait 20 years. So he has taken what looks like a smart, reasonable path."
Navalny's targets have included the oil and gas giant Gazprom, which was previously chaired by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and the state-owned oil company Rosneft, whose chairman is Igor Sechin, a Deputy Prime Minister widely seen as Russia's most powerful official after his boss, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In 2008, Navalny filed a lawsuit to force Rosneft to reveal information about delivery contracts it had with an obscure Swiss oil trader called Gunvor, whose co-owner is an acquaintance of Putin's. A Moscow arbitration court rejected the suit, saying the company was not obligated by Russian law to reveal its dealings with Gunvor. Navalny says he will now file a suit against Rosneft at the European Court of Human Rights for alleged violation of property rights. Rosneft maintains that it has made available to shareholders all the information that is required under Russian law.
Navalny's most significant investigation to date was into the alleged embezzlement of $150 million by officials at a subsidiary of the state-owned bank VTB following the company's purchase of 30 Chinese oil rigs in 2007. His report electrified Russian Netizens when he published it on his blog in November. Authorities initially declined to open a criminal investigation into the deal, saying there were insufficient grounds to do so, but last month Moscow prosecutors sent the case back to the police for further review, which is ongoing. For Navalny, forcing his opponents into a dialogue is often victory enough. "Even a nonsense answer exposes the company somewhat," he says. "At the very least the person responding has to give his name ... They give us something to sink our hooks into."
In a country where discussing conspiracy theories is a national pastime, there is no shortage of speculation about Navalny's motives. Some bloggers say he collects dirt on companies to demand payouts in exchange for keeping quiet. (He denies the accusation, saying the companies he targets are too powerful to bother with hush money.) Others claim he is secretly funded by powerful businessmen who want to make their competitors nervous. Gazprom even published a two-page article in a corporate publication attacking Navalny for his pursuit of criminal charges in a deal involving a Gazprom subsidiary, accusing him of "terrorizing" state-owned companies in order to build "political capital." The article also ridiculed him as a bumbling version of "the brave housewife Erin Brockovich of the eponymous film."
Navalny dismisses the suggestions that he is a puppet of murky forces and says his income from his corporate-law practice is sufficient to finance his crusades. "Not a single one of these managers in these large companies believes I am doing this just as some sort of battle for justice," Navalny says. "These people can't believe that someone would do something for anything other than money."
Harassing Russia's financial and political élite is hardly a hobby for the fainthearted. Navalny says the most common question he's asked is, "Who's paying you to do this?" followed by, "When are you going to be killed?" He says he has never received any direct threats but that he understands the danger of physical retribution for anticorruption campaigners in Russia. He speaks reverently of other activists who do not enjoy his relative fame but nevertheless follow his lead. "For them it's 10 times more dangerous than it is for me," Navalny says. "But they carry on. To a certain degree my work inspires them, and their work inspires me." Plus, he says, there are visceral rewards in attacking the powerful: "I love watching them squirm."
March 9, 2010
Russia's Erin Brockovich: Taking On Corporate Greed
By Carl Schreck / MoscowWhen the state-friendly Russian oil company Surgutneftegas held its annual shareholders meeting in the Siberian city of Surgut two years ago, the proceedings in the shabby auditorium started off as tightly scripted as a Politburo meeting. That is, until the moderator called for questions and Alexei Navalny took the stage. In front of some 300 stunned shareholders, Navalny, who owned about $2,000 worth of stock in the company, grilled senior management for several minutes about the company's minuscule dividends and opaque ownership. When he finished, there was a brief silence and then an unexpected burst of applause from a small group of shareholders in the back of the hall. The company directors were visibly flustered, said a Russian journalist present at the meeting. "They clearly weren't accustomed to being asked questions like that," the journalist said on condition of anonymity, citing company policy about speaking to other media. "They looked really uncomfortable."
Asking uncomfortable questions is what Navalny does best. An erstwhile activist in Russia's marginalized opposition movement, Navalny, 33, has eschewed electoral politics to focus his formidable energies on investigating companies owned by the Russian government and its minions. And in the two years since he crashed that shareholders meeting in Surgut, he has arguably become Russia's most relevant political renegade. He is demonstrating that there may be a tool more effective than the ballot box in keeping Russia's ruling class in check: stock.
A corporate lawyer with a degree in financial markets, Navalny has spent the past three years snapping up small stakes in publicly traded state-owned companies, many of which have senior government officials on their boards. Public listings provide these firms with crucial capital and international legitimacy, but in exchange, they're forced to adhere to a modicum of transparency that is absent from Russian politics. This is where Navalny comes in. Exploiting his status as a part owner, he harasses senior management with questions about how their actions may be affecting the bottom line. "All you need is one share to get into the room with these guys," Navalny says.
Navalny's transparency drives have earned him legions of admirers in the Russian blogosphere, the country's most freewheeling forum for political discussion, and among the independent-minded media. The respected Russian business daily Vedomosti named Navalny its "Private Individual of the Year" for 2009, saying he sets a "personal example proving it's possible for citizens to defend their rights." "While professional investors solve their problems quietly, this everyman, without status or power, is trying to fight the system," the paper wrote of Navalny. Sergei Guriev, dean of Moscow's New Economic School and an independent board member of Sberbank, a state-owned company in which Navalny has stock, says the lawyer's focus is a logical avenue of dissent for politically minded young people who are unable to crack into Russia's rigidly controlled political landscape. "His generation of opposition politicians has been denied a career in politics," he says. "They may have to wait 20 years. So he has taken what looks like a smart, reasonable path."
Navalny's targets have included the oil and gas giant Gazprom, which was previously chaired by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and the state-owned oil company Rosneft, whose chairman is Igor Sechin, a Deputy Prime Minister widely seen as Russia's most powerful official after his boss, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In 2008, Navalny filed a lawsuit to force Rosneft to reveal information about delivery contracts it had with an obscure Swiss oil trader called Gunvor, whose co-owner is an acquaintance of Putin's. A Moscow arbitration court rejected the suit, saying the company was not obligated by Russian law to reveal its dealings with Gunvor. Navalny says he will now file a suit against Rosneft at the European Court of Human Rights for alleged violation of property rights. Rosneft maintains that it has made available to shareholders all the information that is required under Russian law.
Navalny's most significant investigation to date was into the alleged embezzlement of $150 million by officials at a subsidiary of the state-owned bank VTB following the company's purchase of 30 Chinese oil rigs in 2007. His report electrified Russian Netizens when he published it on his blog in November. Authorities initially declined to open a criminal investigation into the deal, saying there were insufficient grounds to do so, but last month Moscow prosecutors sent the case back to the police for further review, which is ongoing. For Navalny, forcing his opponents into a dialogue is often victory enough. "Even a nonsense answer exposes the company somewhat," he says. "At the very least the person responding has to give his name ... They give us something to sink our hooks into."
In a country where discussing conspiracy theories is a national pastime, there is no shortage of speculation about Navalny's motives. Some bloggers say he collects dirt on companies to demand payouts in exchange for keeping quiet. (He denies the accusation, saying the companies he targets are too powerful to bother with hush money.) Others claim he is secretly funded by powerful businessmen who want to make their competitors nervous. Gazprom even published a two-page article in a corporate publication attacking Navalny for his pursuit of criminal charges in a deal involving a Gazprom subsidiary, accusing him of "terrorizing" state-owned companies in order to build "political capital." The article also ridiculed him as a bumbling version of "the brave housewife Erin Brockovich of the eponymous film."
Navalny dismisses the suggestions that he is a puppet of murky forces and says his income from his corporate-law practice is sufficient to finance his crusades. "Not a single one of these managers in these large companies believes I am doing this just as some sort of battle for justice," Navalny says. "These people can't believe that someone would do something for anything other than money."
Harassing Russia's financial and political élite is hardly a hobby for the fainthearted. Navalny says the most common question he's asked is, "Who's paying you to do this?" followed by, "When are you going to be killed?" He says he has never received any direct threats but that he understands the danger of physical retribution for anticorruption campaigners in Russia. He speaks reverently of other activists who do not enjoy his relative fame but nevertheless follow his lead. "For them it's 10 times more dangerous than it is for me," Navalny says. "But they carry on. To a certain degree my work inspires them, and their work inspires me." Plus, he says, there are visceral rewards in attacking the powerful: "I love watching them squirm."
[More]
03/09/2010
Moscow Times
March 9, 2010
Nikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
The regional elections on Sunday could prove to be a milestone in terms of shaping the future political landscape.
While past elections saw the birth of new parties, now they increasingly see the death of old ones. The Yabloko party failed to register in the two regional legislatures where it still has representation, meaning that these elections will mark its final departure from the political scene.
Ever since the direct elections of governors were annulled in 2004, elections for the mayors of regional capitals have become the main arena for political competition. At the same time, this is where the most blatant violations occur, leading to protests from local residents.
It is very possible that Sunday's mayoral election in Irkutsk is the leading candidate for a post-election protest, and the authorities seem to be doing everything in their power to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The new governor of the Irkutsk region, Dmitry Mezentsev, a St. Petersburg native who was nominated for the gubernatorial post by President Dmitry Medvedev in June 2009, led a campaign to send the Irkutsk mayor back to Moscow. He was replaced on an interim basis by Sergei Serebrennikov, the mayor of Bratsk, an aluminum and hydroelectric center that, while part of the Irkutsk region, is still a 90-minute flight from the capital. What's more, Serebrennikov is considered to have close ties to aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is not very popular among Siberians. It is therefore no surprise that polls show Serebrennikov with only half the voter support enjoyed by fellow United Russia politicians native to the Irkutsk region.
Neither should it be a surprise that a local court disqualified the most popular mayoral candidate from the race only 10 days before elections over an alleged discrepancy in the signature list required for registration. In the West, signature lists are required to cull out candidates lacking sufficient popular support. In Russia, signature lists are all too often used to eliminate the most popular candidates.
The Kremlin's efforts are increasingly turning elections into no-confidence votes, particularly amid an economic crisis and high dissatisfaction with the authorities. The Kremlin is beginning to conduct itself in such a way that practically anybody can beat their preferred candidates, not unlike how many Communist Party candidates were swept out during the first multiparty elections during the late perestroika years. It is not so much that there are strong alternative candidates to choose from as that people are ready to vote for just about anyone besides United Russia candidates.
The authorities are using exactly the same tactics in these elections as they employed last fall. And despite Medvedev's assurances to the contrary, widespread use of administrative resources continues, and opposition candidates are denied participation in elections. But society has changed. People were visibly angered by the widespread fraud in the last elections, and the general mood for protest is stronger now than before. Medvedev risks losing face in these elections. And while he already has been discredited in the West, now he risks being discredited among Russians.
The Novocherkassk-2010 scenario could be sparked by the results of Sunday's elections not with the economic collapse of a single-industry town like Novocherkassk in 1962, but by the likelihood that there will be another round of fraudulent elections. It is telling that many regions are already planning protest rallies for March 20, a week after elections.
March 9, 2010
Novocherkassk-2010 Around the Corner
By Nikolai PetrovNikolai Petrov is a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
The regional elections on Sunday could prove to be a milestone in terms of shaping the future political landscape.
While past elections saw the birth of new parties, now they increasingly see the death of old ones. The Yabloko party failed to register in the two regional legislatures where it still has representation, meaning that these elections will mark its final departure from the political scene.
Ever since the direct elections of governors were annulled in 2004, elections for the mayors of regional capitals have become the main arena for political competition. At the same time, this is where the most blatant violations occur, leading to protests from local residents.
It is very possible that Sunday's mayoral election in Irkutsk is the leading candidate for a post-election protest, and the authorities seem to be doing everything in their power to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The new governor of the Irkutsk region, Dmitry Mezentsev, a St. Petersburg native who was nominated for the gubernatorial post by President Dmitry Medvedev in June 2009, led a campaign to send the Irkutsk mayor back to Moscow. He was replaced on an interim basis by Sergei Serebrennikov, the mayor of Bratsk, an aluminum and hydroelectric center that, while part of the Irkutsk region, is still a 90-minute flight from the capital. What's more, Serebrennikov is considered to have close ties to aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is not very popular among Siberians. It is therefore no surprise that polls show Serebrennikov with only half the voter support enjoyed by fellow United Russia politicians native to the Irkutsk region.
Neither should it be a surprise that a local court disqualified the most popular mayoral candidate from the race only 10 days before elections over an alleged discrepancy in the signature list required for registration. In the West, signature lists are required to cull out candidates lacking sufficient popular support. In Russia, signature lists are all too often used to eliminate the most popular candidates.
The Kremlin's efforts are increasingly turning elections into no-confidence votes, particularly amid an economic crisis and high dissatisfaction with the authorities. The Kremlin is beginning to conduct itself in such a way that practically anybody can beat their preferred candidates, not unlike how many Communist Party candidates were swept out during the first multiparty elections during the late perestroika years. It is not so much that there are strong alternative candidates to choose from as that people are ready to vote for just about anyone besides United Russia candidates.
The authorities are using exactly the same tactics in these elections as they employed last fall. And despite Medvedev's assurances to the contrary, widespread use of administrative resources continues, and opposition candidates are denied participation in elections. But society has changed. People were visibly angered by the widespread fraud in the last elections, and the general mood for protest is stronger now than before. Medvedev risks losing face in these elections. And while he already has been discredited in the West, now he risks being discredited among Russians.
The Novocherkassk-2010 scenario could be sparked by the results of Sunday's elections not with the economic collapse of a single-industry town like Novocherkassk in 1962, but by the likelihood that there will be another round of fraudulent elections. It is telling that many regions are already planning protest rallies for March 20, a week after elections.
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