Navalny is best-known for his anti-corruption initiatives, particularly the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is commonly known under its Russian abbreviation FBK. Since its inception in 2011, FBK has evolved into an important independent investigative media outlet by over 15,000 recurring donations from Russian citizens. Although Navalny is not allowed on Russian state-run television, FBK’s video investigations have been watched hundreds of million times on .

In July, Navalny was forced to FBK after a libel lawsuit filed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a US-sanctioned Russian billionaire accused of interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. Prigozhin is seeking 88 million rubles ($1.4 million) from FBK, Navalny and Lyubov Sobol, FBK’s lawyer and a prominent opposition activist. Despite FBK’s liquidation, its team continued to work as usual, and on August 18-20 was filming a in Tomsk, where Navalny is believed to have been poisoned.

Breaking Through the Information Blockade

Navalny’s anti-corruption crusade began in 2008, when he purchased a small number of shares in Russian publicly-traded oil and gas companies, including the majority state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft, and became an activist shareholder. He started publishing into the opaque operations of these companies on LiveJournal, formerly a popular blogging platform in Russia.

Launched in 2011, FBK initially published its reports on Navalny’s LiveJournal page. In 2015, it published its first investigative documentary on Navalny’s YouTube channel, previously used for promoting his Moscow mayoral candidacy in 2013. In the ground-breaking documentary, FBK Russia’s then-Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and his two sons of large-scale corruption, money laundering and links to organized crime figures.

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Since then, FBK has regularly published its investigations on YouTube, pointing out the lavish lifestyles of Russian officials and visualizing complex ownership schemes of their businesses and properties. FBK’s videos were particularly appreciated for their humorous presentation, impressive drone footage of luxury properties and high-quality animations. By keeping the content entertaining and accessible while describing complex fraudulent schemes, Navalny managed to expand his follower base to include people from across the country and its social classes.

In 2017, FBK its best-known documentary, exposing the alleged corrupt activities of Russia’s then prime minister and former president, Dmitry Medvedev. The video was viewed over 36 million times as of September 2020. Shortly after the release of this investigation, Navalny’s YouTube channel gained one million subscribers, and Navalny announced the launch of a second YouTube channel, Navalny Live, intended for live streaming.

In June 2017, TIME magazine Navalny in its list of the 25 most influential people on the internet for “breaking through the Kremlin’s information blockade.” Navalny’s two YouTube channels became an influential alternative to state-run television and a vital source of information for many Russians. By September 2020, the two channels accumulated 4 million and 2 million subscribers, respectively.

Transparency and Accountability

FBK is widely credited for its scrupulous work with public records, which is the main source of information for its investigative documentaries. FBK has been actively challenging the common misconception that Russia is an opaque jurisdiction with poor record-keeping. Indeed, Russian authorities collect and publish a wealth of regularly updated data that is readily available free of charge or for a relatively small fee.

FBK’s investigations are often based on information from Russia’s official land registry and corporate records as well as wealth declarations published by government officials. Based on open source information, in April 2019, FBK that Russia’s longstanding minister of finance, Anton Siluanov, owned a plot of land in the elite Rublevka district outside Moscow and that, taking into account his declared income over the past 10 years, he could not possibly afford it.

Similarly, FBK discovered that a neighboring plot of land is owned by an anonymous “natural person,” according to the official land registry. FBK claimed that the land is owned by the Russian Deputy Minister of Defence Ruslan Tsalikov; the size of the plot was exactly the same as the plot of land Tsalikov mentioned in his wealth declaration. Once again, FBK concluded that Tsalikov would not have been able to buy land in Rublevka considering his declared earnings. Both the finance and defense ministries confirmed ownership of the land but FBK’s allegations of illicit enrichment.

Despite the overall transparency of the official Russian registries, names of senior public officials from Russia’s military and space sectors, and even their relatives, have been increasingly removed from the land registry filings on unclear legal grounds. For example, in November 2019, FBK that the 81-year-old father-in-law of Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos (Russia’s space agency), disappeared from the land registry. His name was substituted by the “natural person” entry. FBK claims that he owns expensive properties on behalf of Rogozin. Rogozin has not responded to FBK’s allegations.

Various global NGOs and think tanks, including Transparency International, have continuously Russia as a country with a high level of corruption. Russian government officials are often involved in illicit enrichment schemes, such as kickbacks, or conceal ownership of businesses and properties through their close associates or offshore shell companies. As demonstrated by FBK’s investigations into Tsalikov and Rogozin’s properties, officials tend to try to hide ownership by erasing their names from the official registries.

Even though FBK can identify individual cases of illicit enrichment, Russia currently lacks the necessary mechanisms to investigate such allegations. Article 20 of the UN Convention Against Corruption defines illicit enrichment as a “significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income.” While Russia ratified the convention in 2006, it refused to include Article 20. Due to this omission, FBK’s anti-corruption investigations have little to no legal consequences within Russia. Against this backdrop, Navalny has repeatedly claimed that political changes are necessary to end endemic corruption in Russia.

Smart Voting Against United Russia

As Russia’s leading opposition figure, Navalny has never concealed that FBK’s investigations are intended as a call for political action. His most recent investigations, including the one filmed in Tomsk, support his political campaign against candidates from the ruling United Russia party on the eve of the regional elections on September 13.

This campaign is part of the so-called smart voting initiative, which is Navalny’s wider strategy to challenge the protracted rule of President Vladimir Putin and United Russia. The central election commission has refused to register Navalny or any other FBK employee as a candidate in elections since 2013, when Navalny came second in Moscow’s mayoral election with 27% of the vote. To challenge the situation, Navalny’s team used its reach to coordinate opposition voters to strategically and effectively beat United Russia candidates in hundreds of local and regional elections. In practice, this means voting collectively for the strongest non-United Russia candidate in any given district, regardless of his or her political affiliation or personal qualities.

In September last year, smart voting generated impressive results: Nearly half of the elected members of the Moscow city council — 20 of 45 members — had been recommended by the platform. During the campaign, FBK’s investigations into the source of wealth of prominent United Russia members in Moscow proved to be a vital agitation tool, given that Navalny or FBK have no access to popular state-run media outlets. According to a published in March this year by Russian political analysts Ivan Bolshakov and Vladimir Perevalov, Navalny’s smart voting, on average, improved the results of opposition candidates by 5.6% in last September’s Moscow city council elections. For instance, FBK Andrey Metelsky, United Russia’s branch head in Moscow, of concealing his multimillion-dollar business empire by controlling it through his 75-year-old mother. Following the 2019 campaign, Metelsky lost his district to a candidate suggested by Navalny’s smart voting. Prior to that, Metelsky had continuously held office since 2001.

According to the , on September 8, Navalny has been taken out of an induced coma and is reported to be responding to speech. His recovery will probably take a long time, and long-term after-effects cannot be ruled out. But it is worth noting that Navalny’s projects seem to be working smoothly even in his absence: The , released on September 9, has already garnered nearly 3 million views. Acting under constant pressure from Russian authorities, Navalny and FBK focused on establishing autonomous operations that do not overly rely on any single person.

On the eve of the 2019 elections, Navalny spent a month in jail for violating Russia’s strict protest laws, while his allies continued to shoot FBK documentaries and campaigned for smart voting. The smart voting platform has already provided its recommendations for the upcoming local and regional elections scheduled for September 13 and intends to do so for the 2021 state Duma elections.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post How Alexei Navalny Created Russia’s Main Opposition Platform appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The vote took place between June 25 and July 1, with the voters being asked to decide on a myriad of unrelated amendments to the Russian Constitution — 206 to be exact — in a single package. For example, the proposed amendments included a passage on “marriage as the union between a man and a woman,” a stipulation of the primacy of the Russian law over international treaties but, most importantly, a “zeroing” of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms. The latter allows Putin to disregard his 20-years-long tenure and run for two more terms in 2024 and 2030.

The voting turned out to be an unapologetic attempt to pull the wool over the public eye. While achieving the figures he wanted, Putin may have sacrificed popular trust in the electoral system for good. From now on, any elections in Putin’s Russia will be treated with skepticism and can hardly remain a source of legitimacy for his protracted tenure.

Why a Nationwide Vote?

The nationwide vote was the most salient but the least decisive part of the constitutional reform procedure. It must be noted that, according to Russian law, the amendments to the constitution do not require a popular vote. Any amendments to Chapters 3 through 8 of the constitution come into force after being approved by legislative authorities of at least two-thirds of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In fact, the constitution had already been amended four times using this procedure before 2020: Two amendments came into force in December 2008, a third in February 2014, and a fourth in July 2014. To amend chapters 1, 2 and 9, which effectively determine Russia’s political system, a new constitution must be adopted through a more rigorous process, which includes a nationwide referendum.

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Similar to the previous four cases, the 2020 amendments concerned Chapters 3 through 8 and did not require a referendum. However, when Putin first the new amendments during his annual address to the federal assembly on January 15, he stressed that the amendments should be subject to approval by Russian citizens. The Kremlin and state-owned media claimed that this showed Putin’s willingness to go the extra mile and to showcase his confidence in national support for the reforms.

By late February, the Russian parliament proposed the so-called nationwide vote, a special voting procedure, not subject to the Russian law on referendums. The head of the central election commission, Ella Pamfilova, that the vote should be an “exclusive, one-time, unique event” to avoid questions regarding the vote’s compliance with existing legislation. Instead of references to the existing laws, the procedure for the nationwide vote was described in the same draft bill as the constitutional amendments.

Wrong Timing

The amendment procedure was seemingly designed as a “special operation,” and its timing was carefully planned. It was initially scheduled to be completed before the May 9 military parade dedicated to the 75^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. If passed quickly, culminating with the parade, the whole procedure might have played well in Putin’s favor and would have been perceived by the public as victorious and unifying reform. This was important, as a prolonged public discussion would inevitably attract attention to Putin’s attempt to reset his presidential terms in 2024.

The legally required procedure unfolded smoothly, as it was well planned and executed by all parties involved. Following Putin’s address to the federal assembly, the draft bill of new amendments was through three readings in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, and approved by the upper house, the federation council, on March 13. The next day, Putin signed the law, which was subsequently on the government’s official website. Russia’s constitutional court the amendments on March 16.

The nationwide vote was initially scheduled for April 22, with the intention to finalize the procedure before May 9. While the amendments had passed all the legally required stages and entered into force by mid-March, the vote was intended to legitimize the process and create a perception of popular approval. However, the neat plan was disrupted by a factor outside of Kremlin’s control: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russia’s health-care authorities first coronavirus cases on January 31, when work on the constitutional amendment in the Duma was already well underway. The number of cases in Russia was still relatively low in late February when Putin publicly announced the date of the vote. In March, infection rates both in Russia and around the world have become truly worrying, with the World Health Organization declaring a pandemic. The Kremlin had no option but to review its plans, and on March 25, Putin that the vote would be rescheduled for a later date.

As a consequence, the nationwide vote was transformed from an asset into a burden. It lost its symbolic flair as Putin’s personal victory on the eve of Victory Day and instead started generating a sober public discussion. A mid-June by reputable Russian sociologist Sergey Belanovsky indicated that zeroing of Putin’s presidential terms was the least popular amendment in the proposed set of reforms, and the more people learned about it, the less likely they were to vote in favor of the reforms.

Combined with the dampening effect of COVID-19 on Russia’s economy and health-care system, a favorable result suddenly became rather unlikely. It would have been equally problematic to abandon the vote, as not only was it promised to the public, but also specifically stipulated in the law on the amendment in question. Two months into lockdown, Kremlin was facing a timing dilemma: If the vote was not announced by the end of May, it would overlap with the regional election campaigns starting in July and August. This would shift the focus of voters and diminish the legitimizing effect.

Pressured by the deadline, Putin the vote for July 1. Subsequently, the election commission unprecedently introduced one week of early voting, from June 25 to 30, citing the need to minimize social contact during the pandemic. On June 1, when the vote was announced, Russia’s authorities reported over 9,000 new cases. The official numbers decreased to around 7,000 new cases per day during the voting week.

PR Exercise

The long preparation did not prevent the vote from turning out to be dubious both in form and in substance. From the very first day, social media was flooded with images of polling stations arranged on tree stumps, park benches and even in car trunks. After all, the central election commission encouraged outdoor balloting under the pretext of COVID-19 precautions. To mobilize voters, authorities organized lotteries, with prizes including apartments and cars. Every person turning out for the vote was also eligible to receive vouchers valid at supermarkets, museums and restaurants. Journalists have found that they were able to cast their , while the head of the election office in Omsk happened to an apartment in the lottery.

Independent monitoring became next to impossible due to the duration of voting, while ballot boxes were left unattended after closing hours. Monitoring was often obstructed by authorities in broad daylight. During one incident, a policeman broke the arm of David Frenkel, a journalist who was covering the vote at a St. Petersburg polling station.

When the result was announced, it came as little surprise. While the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, described it as a triumphant vote of confidence in Putin, opposition politicians, independent observers and electoral experts have been far more critical. Russia’s largest and most reputable election watchdog Golos that the vote failed to meet both Russian and international standards due to the lack of legal framework, procedural violations, forced voting and mass falsification of votes. Golos described the vote as a PR exercise aiming to spin public perception. Sergey Shpilkin, a well-known Russian electoral statistics expert, evidence of widespread fraud. He identified over 22 million cases of irregular voting, which might indicate that around 45% of all votes were falsified.

The Big Picture

The constitutional reform is only the first step in a larger political process currently taking place in Russia. Putin is about to enter a transition period as his fourth presidential term is scheduled to end in 2024. He also desperately needs the United Russia party to secure a comfortable majority in the elections to the Duma in 2021. Without overwhelming control over the legislature (now the United Russia has over two-third seats in the Duma), he might face many unpleasant risks, including that of being impeached.

The referendum has demonstrated that the upcoming parliamentary and presidential campaigns will become increasingly stressful for Putin’s system. Surveys by all major Russian sociological research centers (, , ) indicate that both Putin and United Russia’s approval ratings have been steadily decreasing since 2016 in the context of a stagnating economy and a series of unpopular decisions made by the government. There is little indication that the constitutional reforms will have a positive impact on this dynamic.

On the contrary, the nationwide vote has raised questions about Putin’s legitimacy and authority, not just among the general public but also the regional elites. Thus, the Nenets Autonomous District became the only region to openly rebel against the constitutional reforms: 55.25% of local voters opposed the amendments, according to official data. Most importantly, this figure demonstrates that local elites who were entrusted with delivering the results were not eager to achieve success by any means necessary. After the vote, the district’s governor, Yury Bezdudny, that the people used this opportunity to vote against the Kremlin’s policies in the region, especially the recently proposed merger with neighboring Arkhangelsk.

The nationwide vote leaves Putin with a delegitimized voting procedure as well as significant cracks in his image of a popular leader. Going forward, this will certainly create uncomfortable situations for the Kremlin around upcoming elections.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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