Alexey Navalny

Alexey Navalny
Born	(1976-06-04) June 4, 1976 (age 35) Butyn, Odintsovsky District, Moscow Oblast
Nationality	Russian
Alma mater	Peoples' Friendship University of Russia Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation Yale University
Occupation	Lawyer
Known for	Political and social activism, blogging
Website
navalny.ru

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny (Russian: Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, born June 4, 1976) is a Russian lawyer, politician, and political and financial activist.^[1] Since 2009, he has gained prominence within Russia, and notably within the Russian media, as a critic of corruption in Russia, and especially of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He has used his popular LiveJournal blog to organize large-scale demonstrations to address these issues. He also regularly writes articles in several top Russian publications, such as Forbes Russia. In a 2011 interview with Reuters, he stated that Putin's political system is so weakened by corruption that Russia could face an Arab Spring-style revolt within five years.^[2]

Navalny was named "Person of the Year 2009" by Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.^[3] In 2011, the BBC described Navalny as "arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years".^[4] In 2012, The Wall Street Journal called him "the man Vladimir Putin fears most".^[5] He was the only Russian to be named in Time magazine's 2012 list of the 100 most influential people.^[6]

Early life and career

Navalny is of Russian/Ukrainian decent.^[7] His father Anatoliy Navalny comes from the village Zalissia in Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine. Although Navalny grew up in Obninsk about 100 km southwest of Moscow, he spent his childhood summers at his grandmother in Ukraine.^[8][7]

Navalny graduated from Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in 1998 with a law degree. He then studied securities and exchanges at the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation.^[9][10]

In 2000, Navalny joined the Russian United Democratic Party "Yabloko",^[11] where he was a member of the Federal Political Council of the party. In 2002, he was elected to the regional council of the Moscow branch of Yabloko.^[12]

Activity

In December 2007, a meeting was held by the Bureau of the "Yabloko" party, on the issue of Navalny's exclusion from the party, with demands of "the immediate resignation of party chairman and all his deputies, and the re-election of at least 70% of the Bureau."^[13] Navalny was expelled from Yabloko "for causing political damage to the party; in particular, for nationalist activities."^[14]

Navalny is a minor stockholder in several major Russian state-related corporations and some of his activities are aimed at making the financial properties of these companies transparent. This is required by law, but there are allegations that some of the top managers of these companies are involved in thefts and are obscuring transparency.^[15] Other activities deal with wrongdoings by Russian Militsiya, such as Sergei Magnitsky's case, improper usage of state's budget funds, quality of state services and so on.

In October 2010, Navalny was the decisive winner of virtual "Mayor of Moscow elections" held in the Russian Internet by Kommersant and Gazeta.ru. He received about 30,000 votes, or 45%, with the closest rival being "Against all candidates" with some 9,000 votes (14%), followed by Boris Nemtsov with 8,000 votes (12%) out of a total of about 67,000 votes.^[16]

In November 2010, Navalny published^[17] confidential documents about Transneft's auditing. He claims that the published scan is the one of original document. According to Navalny's blog, about four billion dollars were stolen by Transneft's leaders during the construction of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline.^[18][19]

In February 2011, in an interview with the radio station finam.fm, Navalny called the main Russian party, United Russia, a "party of crooks and thieves". Shortly after, a pro-party lawyer declared that some regular members of United Russia had asked him to proceed against Navalny.^{[citation needed]} In May 2011, the Russian government began criminal investigation into Navalny, widely described in Western media as "revenge", and by Navalny himself as "a fabrication by the security services".^[20][21][22] Meanwhile, "crooks and thieves" became a popular nickname for the party.^[23]

In August 2011 Navalny publicized papers related to a scandalous real estate deal^[24] between Hungarian and Russian governments.^[25][26] According to the papers, Hungary sold a former embassy building in Moscow for $21mln to an offshore company of V.Vekselberg, who immediately resold it to the Russian government for $111mln. Irregularities in the paper trail implied a collusion. Hungarian officials responsible for the deal were detained in February 2011, but no investigation was started on the Russian side.

Involvement in 2011 Russian legislative election

Alexey Navalny at the courthouse, December 6, 2011

In December 2011, after parliamentary elections and accusations of electoral fraud,^[27] some 6,000 gathered in Moscow to protest the fraud and some 300 were arrested including Navalny. After a period of uncertainty, Navalny was produced at court and thereafter sentenced to the maximum 15 days "for defying a government official. He plans to appeal the verdict." Alexei Venediktov called the arrest "'a political mistake: jailing Navalny transforms him from an online leader into an offline one.'"^[28] Navalny was kept in the same prison as several other activists, including Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov, the unofficial leader of the Vanguard of Red Youth, a radical Russian communist youth group. Udaltsov has gone on hunger strike to protest against the conditions.^[29]

Navalny was arrested December 5, 2011, convicted and sentenced to 15 days in jail. Since Navalny was arrested, his blog has become available in English.^[30] On December 7, President Dmitry Medvedev's official Twitter account retweeted a statement by United Russia member Konstantin Rykov which claimed that "a person who writes in their blog the words 'party of crooks and thieves' is a stupid, c*cksucking sheep". This retweet was quickly deleted and described as a mistake by the Kremlin, but gained wide attention in Russia and abroad.^[31]

Involvement in 2012 Russian presidential election

On his release on December 20, Navalny called on Russians to unite against Putin, who he said would try to snatch victory in the March 4, 2012 presidential election.^[32]

Navalny told reporters on his release that it would be senseless for him to run in the presidential elections because the Kremlin would not allow them to be fair. But he said that if free elections were held, he would "be ready" to run.^[32] He then on December 24 helped lead a demonstration much larger than the post-election one (50,000 strong, in one Western-media account), telling the "wildly cheering crowd": "I see enough people to take the Kremlin right now."^[33]

In March 2012, after Putin was elected president, Navalny helped lead an anti-Putin rally in Moscow's Pushkin Square, attended by between 14,000 and 20,000 people. After the rally, Navalny was detained by authorities for several hours, then released.^[34]

On May 8, 2012, the day after Putin was inaugurated, Navalny and another opposition leader, Sergei Udaltsov, were both arrested after an anti-Putin rally at Clean Ponds, and were each given 15-day jail sentences.^[35] In response, Amnesty International designated the two men prisoners of conscience.^[36]

Other awards and honors

Navalny was a World Fellow at Yale University's "World Fellows Program", aimed at "creating a global network of emerging leaders and to broaden international understanding" in 2010.^[37]

See also

• 2006 Russian March
• 2011 Russian protests
• Rustem Adagamov - Russian influential blogger

References

Wikinews has related news: Russia's main airport faces high danger from dump birds

Links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alexey Navalny

• Navalny's site (Russian)
• Navalny's blog (Russian)
• Navalny's blog translated to English, since 6-Dec-2011 (English)
• His project to fight corruption (Russian)
• Ioffe, Julia, "Net Impact: One man’s cyber-crusade against Russian corruption", The New Yorker, 2011-04-04.
• Navalny at Yale World Fellows program
• Photos of Alexey Navalny