Alexei Navalny

• While the result may be a foregone conclusion, the election offers an important glimpse into the Kremlin’s domestic challenges as it continues a war against Ukraine that recently entered its third year.
• As an expert on Russian politics, I have identified three key developments worth paying attention to during and after the upcoming election.

1. Don’t mention the war (too much)

• With Russian domestic media and politics all but gutted of dissenting voices, the war has become the organizing principle of post-2022 Russian politics, shaping all major policies and decisions.
• Yet, while the context of the war looms large, its role is largely implicit rather than occupying center stage.

• There are relatively few ardent supporters of the war, outweighed by a more general sense of fatigue among the public.
• Yet the war is putting pressure on the government’s ability to juggle ensuring a disengaged population and bolstering support for a grinding war that demands unprecedented resources.
• That choice surprised some insiders, who expected Putin to weave his announcement into a high-profile, choreographed event focusing on domestic achievements and not the ongoing war.

2. Pressure to deliver results for Putin

• For officials, the election is a litmus test for their ability to muster administrative resources and deliver Putin an electoral windfall.
• Most reports suggest the Kremlin is hoping to engineer that the turnout is at least 70%, with around 80% of the vote for Putin – which would surpass his 76.7% share from 2018.
• For observers of Russian politics, what will be of interest is not the result itself, but how the result is produced during wartime conditions.
• Moreover, political disengagement and the certainty of a Putin victory means that interest in voting is at an all-time low.

3. Silencing political opposition

• The death of longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny in February 2024 was a huge blow to the opposition but is representative of the state of political repression in Russia.
• Since 2018, some 116,000 Russians have faced political repression.
• Yet the scale of public mourning for Navalny and the enthusiasm for Nadezhdin reveal that despite draconian wartime censorship and repression, there remains a sizable bloc of Russians eager for authentic political alternatives.

Adam Lenton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The Coalition for Integrity (C4I) releases the following statement:
  Alexei Navalny stood for integrity, transparency, and accountability – the core values of the Coalition for Integrity (C4I).
• He courageously and persistently fought against corruption in his native Russia but was universally recognized as a global champion of truthfulness.
• Ms. Daria Navalny, Mr. Navalny’s daughter, will accept the Award on Mr. Navalny’s behalf.
• As C4I continues fighting for the same integrity, transparency, and accountability values, the organization honors his memory.

• DALLAS, Feb. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As an organization rooted in the Rule of Law, the American Board of Trial Advocates extols the life work of attorney Alexei A. Navalny, who died in a Russian prison on February 16, 2024.
• Mr. Navalny completed his law degree in 1998, and soon thereafter, used his training to expose corporate corruption tied to the highest echelon of the Russian government.
• In the government's effort to silence him, Mr. Navalny was wrongfully prosecuted, imprisoned, and poisoned.
• ABOTA and its members are dedicated to preserving and promoting the civil jury trial right provided by the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

• It is inevitable that the incumbent president, Vladimir Putin, will win.
• Putin has been in power (whether as president or as prime minister) since 2000.
• In the last presidential election in 2018, the Communist candidate came second to Putin, (12% of the vote compared to Putin’s 77%).

Opposition candidates?

• Some potential candidates who wanted to stand in opposition to Putin – and in specific opposition to the war in Ukraine – have, on dubious bureaucratic grounds, been refused permission to do so.
• But it is a brave candidate who might try and oppose the sitting president in this election.
• In the past, leading opposition figures in Putin’s Russia who stood up to him and who questioned his authority have tended to be dealt with harshly.
• The liberal Boris Nemtsov was killed, for instance, in 2015 outside the Kremlin (supposedly by agents linked to Putin’s FSB).
• And other leading Putin critics such as Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Khodorkovsky have been sent to jail in Siberia.

Putin’s future

• President Alexander Lukashenko was almost unseated by a wave of street protests in the wake of what appeared to be a “sham” election.
• Indeed, Putin himself was given a severe shock in 2011 when the same thing happened in Russia.
• Thousands of protestors came out onto the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg after seemingly fraudulent elections.
• So, despite all the temptations, he needs to keep this forthcoming presidential election as seemingly “free” and fair as possible.

Rod Thornton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.