Advice to Biden, Don’t Do Stupid Things… Navalny
Despite four years of non-stop coverage of Russian election meddling and a dismal US track record of picking “regime change” winners (Chalilbi, Guido etc.), the media drumbeat spin promoting a stupid thing is gaining momentum. On November 8 the New York times noted that Biden sees Russia as one of America’s biggest security threats and “Even as the Kremlin stayed mum… Mr. Putin’s staunchest domestic opponent — the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny — offered well-wishes on Twitter to Mr. Biden…” Prior to his electoral congratulations, Navalny was an explosive presence in US media to promote his narrative of what happened when he got ill on a plane from Tomsk (small, student city, home to the oldest Siberian University) to Moscow.
The narrative is clear and certain, but does it make any sense? As the top US media outlets amplified Navalny’s voice, journalistic inquiry was absent. No skepticism amidst relief that their subject demonstrated remarkable health and awareness for someone who had so recently been clobbered by a military grade chemical weapon (Novichok). No follow-ups to the evidence presented for some aspects of the story (provenance of the water bottle assumed to be the poison delivery device) or total lack of evidence for others (Putin ordering the hit). Russian Internet star Yuri Dud provided these elements when he traveled to Germany to conduct a two hour interview with Navalny and his wife that is on YouTube with English subtitles. His pushback on the narrative included the question, “What did you do specifically to Putin to make him loose his cool and order such a clumsy attempt on your life?”
My investigation into the viability of the threat to the Putin regime motive is based primarily on Levada Center surveys and the September 2020 City Council elections in the third largest city in Russia, Novosibirsk. 266 km south of Tomsk where the alleged poisoning took place, Novosibirsk is home to the most organized regional Navalny political machine. The boss was in town rallying the “Novosibirsk Coalition 2020” team of 31 candidates for the City Council, including opposition headquarters chief Sergey Boyko, before his fateful trip to Tomsk.
Boyko provided legitimacy to Novosibirsk as a gauge of Navalny’s popularity and his viability to lead a movement that is an existential threat to Putin, “Elections in Novosibirsk are elections for all of Russia…. Novosibirsk is the golden middle, how people vote in Novosibirsk, plus or minus, is how the rest of the country votes.”
There are three components to our search for evidence and Navalny’s potential to generate sufficient Russian popular support to merit the western media attention he receives:
Navalny the man:
In April 2020 through Sept. 20, one month after Navalny was hospitalized and just over 2 weeks after regional elections, the Levada Center asked people to name their 5–6 most trusted political figures. Putin improved his #1 rating going from 28% to 33% of respondents trusting him. Rabid, colorful nationalist, and leader of the LDPR party Vladimir Zhirinovsky improved his position to come in at #2 with 14%. Navalny came in 7th (behind the Communist Zyganov 5%) with a trust trajectory from 4% in April to 3% in September.
More subjective concerns about Navalny’s temperament and strategy were raised by Dud in relation to dust-ups with journalists:
Dud: Are you sure throwing around such language and insults is the best….
Navalny: It’s not insults, it’s the honest to God truth.
Dud: But you see yourself as the future President of Russia. Is this really the level of minutia you wanna get involved with…even now not being the President? It just seems such a triviality to start a fisticuffs over but you do it anyway.
Navalny: I use individual examples to discuss the whole system. Certainly it is one of my downsides…I definitely get personal. It is part of my political strategy because I got into politics to criticize specific people, among other things.
Smart Voting (SV) Strategy: The idea here is to disregard ideology and platforms, vote for the person with the greatest chance of beating United Russia (Putin’s party). Similar to “vote for blue no matter who” with a much wider range of personality and platforms options.
The last week of September the Levada Center conducted a survey to see what influence Putin and Navalny had on who people voted for in regional elections. If Putin supported a candidate, attitudes towards that candidate increased 17%, for Navalany 11%. In relation to influencing a decrease in support for a candidate, Putin has this effect on 10% and Navalny 23%. No influence on their opinion was reported by 68% for Putin and 61% for Navalny.
In his Dud interview Navalny points to Novosibirsk as a Smart Voting success story responsible for unseating 13 United Russia candidates. On their site, they take credit for 12. The reality is that without exit polls, a direct line to Smart Voting is impossible to establish. After a deep dive into each of the races claimed as victories only the four Navalny Coalition winners are legitimate. Two SV “victories” were very active and respected deputies who attracted far more votes than any Coalition candidate. Another well-known activist resented anyone taking credit for his victory, “… the result I got in the elections was objective and independent. People voted because they knew me personally, and not because they were given any instructions. “ Three others claimed by Navalny won by between 700 and 1300 votes so in a low turnout election whatever votes SV may have delivered, they were not determinant. And, it turns out there was another Coalition, “The League of Effectiveness”, responsible for the final three SV “wins”. An LDPR Oblast Deputy organized the coalition to consolidate the city council forces in one district. In summary, there is no evidence that Smart Voting was responsible for any non Navalny Coalition city council victory in Novosibirsk.
The Movement and his anti-corruption, anti-Putin “party of crooks and thieves” platform and it’s potential to become a governing force in Russia:
The Navalny movement is 10 years old. It has an impressive on-line presence with anti-corruption videos racking up millions of views. Boyko’s YouTube channel has 18,000 subscribers and his campaign videos had up to 4,000 views. By election day, Navalny’s Novosibirsk anti-corruption video had almost 5 million views and his targeted get the vote out video garnered 75,262 views. Did this on-line popularity convert into votes?
Four of the 31 Navalny Coalition candidates won, including Boyko. A fifth was cheated out of a victory by 11 votes. Not bad as all the other liberal parties are backsliding into oblivion with Yabloko, a previous western favorite, fielding only one candidate who lost. Still, there is a big difference between becoming the “liberal” candidate or party and leading a movement to turn Russia that currently tends towards conservative and socialist into a western neo-liberal democracy. That requires a measurable degree of energy and enthusiasm and there was no evidence of that in Novosibirsk. Voter turnout is the best indicator. Despite more opportunities to vote in 2020, the turnout was even lower than 2015. In 2015 it was 20.42% and 2020 only 18.43% bothered to vote. Turnout in Navalny Coalition districts was even lower at 18.23%. Overall, 36,615 people out of 1,195,726 eligible voters voted for the 31 Coalition candidates, .03%. Boyko won with 43.8% of the vote but only 11% of eligible voters showed up in his district (2,514 voters). Another negative indicator of the electoral significance of the videos is one of the UR stars in the anti-corruption video not only won, but was the third biggest vote getter in the election.
This is being spun as a major victory. Similarly, there are raves for a Levada Center survey increase of people who approve of Navalny’s activities from 6% in May to 20% in September. Less promising and more significant since the number of people who never heard of him dramatically decreased from 59% to 18% is the change in those who disapprove of him that went up from 35% to 50%. During that same period Levada’s Putin approval rating went from 59% to 69%.
Conclusion
There is no concrete or circumstantial evidence to support Putin ordering a hit on Navalny. Most people in Russia are not satisfied with the status quo, even the 49% who reported to Levada that Russia is on the right track. The evidence we have does not support the idea that even close to a majority of Russians see Alexei Navalny as representing the change they want to see. That doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for his movement to grow.
The four Novosibirsk and two Tomsk Coalition City Deputies have a chance to show how effective they are at governance and generating results for their constituents.
Navalny can also try to be less divisive and broaden his tent. 34 year old Dud suggested this to him referring to his experience in the crowd at a 2019 demonstration , “Your entire speech was filled with aggression and hostility towards people who provide security…People at the assembly were ecstatic, at some point the crowd shouted ‘Cops disgrace Russia’. I had a thought at the time, Alexei wouldn’t it have been better to come out and instead of saying something your followers expect to hear, address the people on the other side?…Shouldn’t you have tried to broaden your audience?”
No amount of western spin, sanctions, threats, or support for Navalny will help him move into the Kremlin if he and his movement do not demonstrate the wisdom, discipline, and patience to do these two things.
As for Biden and his team, all they need to do is stay out of internal Russian politics. The City Council election results demonstrated that the push for change is not coming just from the Coalition deputies. They are joining a small group in the City Council who had already elevated the bar for how a Deputy is expected to communicate with their constituents and fearlessly challenge the powers that be and got re-elected in spite of well mobilized forces against them.
