Alexander — Navalny’s phoney Presidential bid and the Russian Presidential election

Another side of the story that you won't find in Western media.

Russia Feed
Navalny’s phoney Presidential bid and the Russian Presidential election
Alexander

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On December 29, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) registered the unchallenged leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR), Vladimir Zhirinovsky, as a presidential candidate. Zhirinovsky, who is going to run for president for the sixth time, is the first officially registered participant in the election race.

In his first interview as a presidential candidate, Zhirinovsky tells TASS why he decided to toss his hat into the ring for the presidency once again, what sort of program he planned to offer voters and what will be his first steps, if elected president.

- Vladimir Volfovich, you have decided to run for Russian president for the sixth time. What have you got to offer this time around?

- Unlike the left, we do not trot out any far-fetched or unachievable promises. Our program is straightforward and clear – there should not be any homeless, unemployed or hungry. This is the minimal goal, while the maximum goal is to make a major leap forward....

TASS
TASS exclusive: Zhirinovsky's first interview as presidential candidate
Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR) presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky interviewed by Diana Rudakova

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Lenin's Last Struggle

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The Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin: Review

Neil Acherson

Jafe Arnoldski — Yabloko vs. Navalny: Russian Liberals Plot for 2018 Elections

Backgrounder on liberalism in Russia. Liberalism is chiefly confined to Moscow and St. Petersburg, but its greatest strength is the "fifth column" within the Russian government.

Part of the Russian establishment is sympathetic to the liberals, and this is no secret. More precisely, one could say that liberals even make up part of the ruling elite. The liberals have the financial and economic wing of government in their hands, and wield partial influence over the spheres of ideology, cultural policy, national policy, and international relations.

This is the cohort that the US is courting.

The West is hoping for precisely such a timely “cleansing” of the Russian ruling elite ahead of new fierce showdowns. The sanctions against Russia recently adopted by the US Congress and approved by President Trump signal a new upswing in American interference in the political and electoral process in Russia. The US’ main agent of influence in Russia is the liberal party in the broad sense of the word, its most radical wing being Navalny and more conformist wing being the Yabloko leadership. The liberal camp is being offered power and potential by the numerous and influential liberal party in power and its situational ally - the oligarch class.

Fort Russ
Yabloko vs. Navalny: Russian Liberals Plot for 2018 Elections
Eduard Popov, translated by Jafe Arnoldski

Bryan MacDonald — 3 reasons why Navalny probably won’t defeat Putin

On Russian politics but more about US fake news about it.

This means that across the western world the mainstream media is hoodwinking the general public into believing that Navalny is a genuine threat to Putin. For some context, it’s akin to Russian and Chinese media informing their readers how the American Green Party leader, Jill Stein, is a realistic candidate to defeat the Republican or Democratic nominee to be the next occupant of the White House. This would, naturally, be baloney....

Russia Beyond the Headlines
3 reasons why Navalny probably won’t defeat Putin

Bryan MacDonald

Alexander Mercouris — Protests in Russia fizzle as Medvedev corruption case unravels

The allegations of corruption made against Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev by the opposition activist and blogger Alexey Navalny have been given short shrift in – of all places – an article in the Washington Post.

In an unusual flurry of objective reporting, the Washington Post also admits that the turnout at follow on opposition rallies in Moscow on 2nd April 2017 was derisory and that Navalny – the individual the Western media regularly touts as the leader of Russia’s opposition – is widely disliked and has little support.…

Unusually the Washington Post not only admits the incontrovertible fact that the turnout at the protests on Sunday 2nd April 2017 was derisory, but has now also admitted in a separate article that Navalny’s case that Medvedev is corrupt is based less on fact than on innuendo.…

Elsewhere, in its article about the protests on 2nd April 2017, the Washington Post article actually admits that Navalny is extremely unpopular….

The was already widely known to anyone that cared to examine the reporting, but the wishful thinking Western media ran away with the idea that the Russian government was on the verge of toppling. Completely ridiculous.

The Duran
Protests in Russia fizzle as Medvedev corruption case unravels

Alexander Mercouris

John Helmer — Gorilla Radio, Canada – Russian Anger At Corruption Is A Political Asset For President Vladimir Putin, Not For Critics Like Alexei Navalny

Correcting wishful thinking in the Western press about the recent anti-corruption protests in Russia,  a recent Levada Center poll reveals that they were actually pro-Putin.

President Vladimir Putin is viewed as the Russians’ preference for reducing corruption; fewer Russians now than four years ago believe Putin is personally corrupt, or benefits from the corruption of his cronies and subordinates.

Sometime ago Putin appointed and "honest cop" in charge of a new anti-corruption drive, making his agency independent and giving him free rein to conduct investigations. Since then a number of high-profile political leaders and other powerful people have been arrested for corruption.

President Xi took similar measures in China and many "tigers" have been arrested in addition to "flies."

Meanwhile, the US continues to apply its double standard of law enforcement. The swamp still needs draining.

Dances with Bears

Gorilla Radio, Canada – Russian Anger At Corruption Is A Political Asset For President Vladimir Putin, Not For Critics Like Alexei Navalny

John Helmer

Alexander Mercouris — Protests in Moscow and across Russia fail to shake the Kremlin

The protests were called by the Russian neoliberal ‘non-system’ activist and ‘anti-corruption’ campaigner Alexey Navalny, purportedly in order to protest against the alleged corruption of Russia’s Prime Minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev seems an unlikely target for these protests. His time as President from 2008 to 2012 is sometimes seen as a sort of liberal heyday, and it is indeed a fact that in the last weeks of his Presidency he rushed through a series of liberalisation measures in response to the protests which took place in Moscow and elsewhere following the 2011 Duma elections. The fact that the very same liberals who whilst he was President hailed Medvedev as their hero and who are the main beneficiaries of his liberalisation of the political system should now turn on him does rather seem like a case of of them biting the hand that fed them.….

As I discussed recently in an article written immediately after last autumn’s parliamentary elections in Russia, Parnas – the party with which Navalny is most closely associated – only won 0.70% of the vote in that election, whilst the combined vote of all the anti-government liberal parties in that election came to no more than 2.56%. That this is a totally insufficient electoral base from which to launch a serious bid for the Presidency should not need explaining.

It is in fact highly doubtful that Navalny genuinely believes that he can win the Presidential election next year, or that he seriously aims to. However he has to show to his supporters and funders – both those in Russia, and more importantly, those in the West – that he is an active force in Russian politics and that he is providing some value for all the backing they are giving him. That leads him to make wild allegations against people like Medvedev, to announce a bid to stand in an election he cannot win, and to call a protest in Moscow and across Russia which on any objection assessment simply highlights the absence of widespread support for him.

It is this need to retain attention which explains why Navalny not only called the protest today but insisted on holding it in the form of an unsanctioned march along Tverskaya in central Moscow rather than in the various locations offered him. Through this act of seeming ‘defiance’ Navalny is able to strike a heroic (though fake) pose (since he knows nothing will actually be done to him), provoke conflict – including his own arrest – and disguise the fact that only a few thousand people turned up to support him (the police in Moscow put the number between 7,000 to 8,000) by mixing his supporters up with ordinary pedestrian traffic and the large number of onlookers who might normally be expected on a Sunday in what is Moscow’s main and busiest thoroughfare....

The Duran
Protests in Moscow and across Russia fail to shake the Kremlin
Alexander Mercouris

Alexander Mercouris — Russia Arrests its only Liberal Regional Governor

Of course, the West will see this sting as persecution, as it has the conviction of many other corrupt liberal oligarchs and politicians. Not to imply that Russian liberals have a monopoly on corruption in Russia.

Inevitably there are already claims that the arrest and prosecution of Russia’s only liberal governor is politically motivated – supposedly as a tightening up exercise in light of the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The Russian authorities of course deny this, and the reasons for supposing a political motive are not obvious. Belykh is hardly a popular figure and as governor of the remote and underpopulated Kirov Region he is hardly a threat to the authorities in Moscow. If he was they would have presumably dismissed him before now. As it happens Belykh is the third Russian regional governor to be arrested on corruption charges this year, which suggests that he has simply fallen foul of an ongoing anti-corruption campaign.…

Belykh’s political longevity notwithstanding the scandals of his administration and his all-too obvious administrative incompetence is an indication of how Russian liberals – far from being the persecuted minority they claim to be – in reality enjoy extraordinary privileges in a country where they are widely disliked. His arrest however suggests that his incompetence and/or corruption have finally caught up with him.

Russia recently appointed an independent investigator whose reputation for honesty and effectiveness is high to lead the offensive against endemic corruption. Xi Jinping has acted similarly in China, since corrupt is a major drag there as well as it Russia. Needless to say, the West sees this as an ominous sign of political repression. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The Duran
Russia Arrests its only Liberal Regional Governor
Alexander Mercouris

PolitRussia — Political Outrage over Navalny's Work with US Embassy

Russian liberal party leader  Alexey Navalny exposed as a US asset. Russians react.

US attempts to recruit other opposition parties and is rebuffed.

Imagine the reaction if a US or UK political candidate was discovered meeting with Russian or Chinese "diplomats."

Fort Russ
Political Outrage over Navalny's Work with US Embassy

PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski