Before his death, the opposition leader laid out a strategy to challenge the Russian president.
Just 15 days before he was declared dead in a Russian prison, Alexei Navalny launched his last salvo against Vladimir Putin.
The Russian opposition leader had spent the final weeks of his life imprisoned in a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, a notoriously cold, dangerous and uncomfortable place with conditions so extreme they are tantamount to torture.
For more than a decade, Navalny had been the Russian president’s most prominent opponent and biggest political threat. Over the years, he had been put under state surveillance, physically attacked and jailed. And yet, in January 2021, after recovering in Germany from being nearly killed by the Novichok nerve agent, he had opted to return to Russia, knowing he would likely be detained on arrival.
What is the actual plan?
Navalny:
I like the idea of anti-Putin voters going to the polling stations together at 12 noon, at noon against Putin.
Well, what can they do? Will they close the polling stations at 12 noon? Will they organize an action in support of Putin at 10 a.m.? Will they register everyone who came at noon and put them on the list of unreliable people?
It had long been clear the election would be neither free nor fair: Putin would be the only real candidate standing, with all his prominent critics either dead, imprisoned, in exile or struck off the ballot. But by simply showing up at the appointed hour, Russians could voice their disapproval and expose the vote — intended by the Kremlin to deliver the ultimate acclamation of Putin after his assault on Ukraine — as bogus.
Not to mention, if they all just happen to show up at the same time, they will hopefully recognize their numbers are bigger than they know. Once they know the numbers are in their favor, it doesn’t take much effort to convince everyone that shit changes now. You’re already there.
And why it’s important to the Russian population.
“During Navalny’s funeral, people realized that they are many and that there’s a way for them to show that their opinion counts,” Duntsova, the barred presidential hopeful, told POLITICO. “In today’s Russia, queues have become a symbol of dissent, a way to express your civic position.”
Thank you
