One curious point of agreement between anti-imperialist “Western Russophiles” and the most deranged Russophobes (e.g. Arkady Babchenko, who had called him Russia’s “future liberal Fuhrer”) is the idea that Navalny is a nationalist. This is despite almost no actual, self-identified Russian nationalists considering him as such, and Navalny himself energetically signalling against Russian identity and Russian interests on matters from the status of the Crimea to renaming Murmansk Airport after the city’s founder Nicholas II.
Anyhow, as you recall, a month ago there were protests in Moscow about the Central Electoral Commission’s refusal to register some liberal oppositionist candidates such as Lyubov Sobol and Ilya Yashin in the upcoming Moscow Duma elections. Their response, under the aegis of Navalny’s FBK organization, has been to roll out the “Smart Vote” program – a set of recommendations on voting in a way that maximizes the damage to United Russia-backed candidates. You see, the popularity of United Russia in the capital is currently at a relative trough, so all of their candidates are standing as independents to avoid getting tarred by association. The idea of the “Smart Vote” is to identify those United Russia wolves in independent clothing, and vote for the person likeliest to beat them in each okrug.
Now the Russian nationalist opposition – as in, people who care for Russian interests, but don’t particulate care for the kremlins – isn’t particularly strong (the LDPR, as is the KPRF, is accomodative towards Putinism). Nonetheless, despite being short of both financial and institutional resources, it has managed to field two candidates this electoral season.
Roman Yuneman (right) is a young, telegenic, nationalist of Siberian Cossack-Volga German ancestry with a degree from the Higher School of Economics (one of Russia’s best universities) and a German institution, who has been endorsed by the Russian Democrats, one of the few explicitly nationalist opposition movements in Russia. He has run an exemplary campaign, meeting up with thousands of potential voters over the past month and collecting almost $100,000 in campaign funds. His political program calls for greater municipal autonomy, ecology, removing barriers to business, tightening immigration law, and more public consultation on large construction projects – that is, not far removed from what Navalny himself claims to support. He has also supported the protests and demanded that detailed protesters be freed.
Most importantly, though, an independent poll has him leading with 22.6% in his district of Chertanovo (Okrug №.30), followed by the Mayoralty candidate Margarita Rusetskaya (20%) and the Communist Vladislav Zhukovsky (13%). Zhukovsky disputed that, posting a poll with VCIOM’s logo showing himself ahead of Yuneman (the poll was fake) and claiming that he was likewise ahead in the FBK’s internal polls (even provoking an infuriated Volkov into denying they had done any polling in Chertanovo).
By any logic, any “Smart Vote” that promoted strategic voting against United Russia would have endorsed Yuneman. Which is why they endorsed his opponent Zhukovsky instead, with Navalny’s Jewish campaign manager Leonid Volkov claiming that “nobody has heard of” Yuneman and insinuating that he is not an independent candidate – though, perhaps, Volkov’s snide reference to him being a fascist (“zigomet”) may have played a more decisive role. But this is perhaps less surprising in view of Navalny’s own present day values (as opposed to a few nasty words about Caucasians a decade ago); just a few days ago, he had approvingly reposted an account of how the “progressive majority” in Germany had voted strategically to prevent the nationalist AfD from coming first in any one German state. As Sergey Grigorov, chairman of the Russian Democrats, remarked, “we are seeing the merger of the Left-Liberal Obkom with Navalny to the the point of indistinguishability.”
Either way, the likeliest result of endorsing Zhukovsky is not his victory, but Rusetskaya slipping through into first place ahead of Yuneman.
Perhaps this is just the result of Navalny/Volkov’s personal issues with Yuneman in particular? But then there is also the case of Nadezhda Shalimova (right), the second oppositionist nationalist running against the Mayoralty candidate Ilya Sviridov and the KPRF’s Elena Shuvalova in the central Okrug №.44. Born in Kuibyshev (now Samara), she harbored dreams of becoming a cosmonaut as a young girl, which dissipated upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. Observing the subsequent sale of the country, she decided to eventually become a politician. She is a critic of United Russia and has regularly shared articles from the censored Sputnik & Pogrom oppositionist nationalist journal on her social media sites.
Now I am not aware of any polls from that district, so perhaps there is a case to be made for favoring Shuvalova over Shalimova – if pursuing the failure of UR-backed candidates was to be the only goal. Though the paucity of polls also puts into question the guidelines issued by Smart Vote, since the FBK’s methodology on exactly how they determined the challengers with the best prospects to beat United Russia is completely opaque.
Furthermore, it is also questionable how ethical and consistent it is for ostensible champions of democratic values to champion Shuvalova, a Bolshevik not just in word but in deed, who had attempted to have Shalimova deregistered from the elections on the basis of her husband Konstantin Krylov having been included into the Russian state’s registry of “terrorists and extremists” in 2013 (for his comment that “it it time to do away with this strange economic system” pertaining to federal subsidies to the Caucasus). Considering the liberal opposition’s own problems with getting registered, endorsing a candidate who supports weaponizing the bureaucracy to prevent the registration of political opponents on the basis of guilt by association is something to behold.
Unless, of course, they essentially agree with Shuvalova. And they presumably do, because the “Smart Vote” presents Shalimova as a… wait for it… technical candidate from the Mayoralty.
That’s right. The Navalnyites are outright smearing the second of the only two oppositionist nationalist candidates in Moscow as a United Russia stooge.
So what we actually have is Navalny systemically supporting Communist candidates not just against United Russia, but the only two oppositionist nationalists standing in the Moscow elections – one of whom is decisively beating both his United Russia and KPRF rival according to opinion polls, the other whom they claim is an outright stooge of United Russia (as opposed to just hinting at it in the case of Yuneman). This reinforces a point that I have long made – far from being any sort of aspiring Hitler (as believed by leftist Western Russophiles and low information sovoks), Navalny is a populist demagogue who is only interested in power for its own sake. That is, he is another Yeltsin, who transmogrified from the Soviet apparatchik who demolished the Ipatiev House where the Romanovs were murdered as head of the Sverdlovsk Obkom in the 1970s, to a democratist champion challenging Party privileges in the late 1980s and proceeded to run the country into the ground on coming to power.
Likewise, Navalny will adopt any ideological guise – be it nationalism, liberalism, anti-corruptionism, or now leftist progressivism – so long as it advances the holy struggle against the “regime.” What happens next is of little importance, because even if their dalliances with the Reds ends up going south, the Navalnys will always have their boltholes in the West just like their predecessors in 1917.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Navalny is an opportunistic thief, not Russian (or any other) nationalist. The only reason he is not in jail (his rightful place) is that he apparently also doubles as Kremlin stooge. He never passes an opportunity to get some money, be it from the US Embassy or Kremlin.
Drat! Beat me to it. I also (with much less on-the-ground experience) saw that the actual effect of N’s “smart voting” would be to bolster the runner up — ie KPRF most of the time and Zhirinovskiy most of the rest of the time. Something, one assumes, that his “democratic (TM)” supporters would hardly like.
All I could add is that this is another indication that N is a tool of Washington. The War Party desperately wants VVP out and, as we have seen over and over again, never has any Plan B for dealing with the likely results of its interference.
Thanks. Not LDPR – as you can see (https://msk.vote/), they endorsed zero LDPR candidates; they are all KPRF, Yabloko, or Just Russia.
This, of course, is another indicator suggesting an ideological undercurrent as opposed to just the “practical” one of combatting UR.
Wow, the fat loser has a wife??
That’s the most interesting fact to come out of this nothingburger “election” so far.
The key to understanding Navalny is The Cop and the Anthem.
He is not interested in power, he is interested in victimhood so that the cash keeps flowing.
Many thought that the greatest chekist success of all times was the creation of the Sorge spying ring or having hitler’s secretary personally mail Stalin.Personally I think that Navalny may prove to be Russian/Soviet power agencies’ greatest success after all if he can save Putler by having Zyuganov’s goons elected instead of genuine opposition.Can’t wait to see a KPRF dominated duma next year vote for whatever constitutional amendment ends up being cooked up by Vaino or some other Presidential administration staffer!
These are the Moscow Duma elections – they’re not that important.
This is a general pattern among opposition forces in Eastern Europe: they’ll form all kinds of absurd alliances in hopes of toppling the government. The most prominent example is how “ultra-nationalist” Jobbik joined forces with the left parties in Hungary in various anti-Fidesz alliances at the local and national level, though with Jobbik having been shellacked in the E.U. parliament elections and their right-wing splitting off to form a separate party, their influence in the “Viktor Orbán is a Big Meanie” coalition has waned.
Similarly in Poland, the right-wing populist Kukiz ’15 is running on a joint list with the center-left Polish People’s Party (which has governed in coalition with neoliberal Civic Platform and social democratic Democratic Left Alliance in the past) in a desperate attempt to stay in parliament. It’s not going to work out: the joint list has been consistently polling below the 8% electoral threshold due to the right-wing vote consolidating behind Law and Justice.
The general pattern is that the shrinking opposition voters in the countries want ideologically coherent opposition parties/coalitions and can sniff out grifters easily. Jobbik’s flip-flopping wiped out their credibility; why vote for a party that so rapidly changes its political positions? Moreover, the left voters in these countries absolutely refuse to clique up with “Nazis,” so these big-tent opposition alliances end up pleasing no one.
If the GOP was even “competitive” for the elections to the New York City Council, I dunno, I’d think it was important.
The GOP doesn’t have a single city councilor in most large US cities. (Representation matters, huh)
If you want to see big tenting at it’s finest, look no further than the Serbian Progressive Party – going from “100 muslims for every dead serb” to barely literate lgpt prime minister, supported by an endless cadre of pensioners and public servants, and other subhumans
Isn’t it crazy how United Russia candidates pretend not to be affiliated with United Russia? They spent 20 years building this “Party of Power”, and this is the result.
What makes him a loser exactly?
Losehood is a holistic personality characteristic, not a particular this or that action.
But the guy in question is (was?) unironically LARping as a Zoroastrian – because, apparently, normal religions are not hipster enough. If that isn’t ‘loser’, then what is?
Will admit I didn’t have the very highest opinion of Krylov up to this point, but given your predilection for error, you may force me to reconsider.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1170645911153905664
AK: What about “Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread” is unclear? Further replies will be deleted.
From our host’s twitter – what is going on?
Mr. Karlin overdosed the blackest blackpills?
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1169745821690150918
If you really believe it, why you decided to dedicate your life to fight for a doomed cause?
Ragnarok spirit of your Nordic ancestors?
Unironic religious faith that God will reward you in afterlife?
I don’t know about Karlin, but I personally couldn’t serve Globohomo, because it’d require me to keep telling lies, which are obviously false. I’m not wired to do that.
AK: Incoherent cretin banned.
Anatoly Karlin says: “Russian Nationalist” Navalny Endorses Commies Over Actual Nationalists in Moscow Elections”
This just in :
The differences between communism/socialism and “nationalism” are miniscule to the point of irrelevancy.
“Nationalism” is just another convenient, fancy label for the mind-rot more usually labelled “communism”, or”socialism”.
Bottom line: The obfuscating label “Nationalism” is just more, entirely superficial, “lipstick on the pig”called “socialism/collectivism/communism”.
So Russian”nationalists” are deluding themselves if they think that what they now propose to enforce on everyone is, ideologically, fundamentally any different from the mind-rot known more commonly referred to as “socialism”, or “collectivism”, or “communism.” It ain’t.
But carry right on Mr Karlin. Self delusion is always good for a laugh or two. 🙂 .
“…The nationalist, too, affirms Socialism, and objects only to its Intemationalism. He wishes to combine Socialism with the ideas of Imperialism and the struggle against foreign nations. He is a national, not an international socialist; but he, also, approves of the essential principles of Socialism.
The supporters of Socialism therefore are not confined to the Bolshevists and their friends outside Russia or to the members of the numerous socialist parties: all are socialists who consider the socialistic order of society economically and ethically superior to that based on private ownership of the means of production, even though they may try for one reason or another to make a temporary or permanent compromise between their socialistic ideal and the particular interests which they believe themselves to represent. If we define Socialism as broadly as this we see that the great majority of people are with Socialism to-day…….”
LudwigVon Mises, from “Socialism. An Economic and Sociological Analysis” :
https://mises.org/library/socialism-economic-and-sociological-analysis
Regards, onebornfree
United Russia is extremely unpopular all across Russia. Last year it lost several governorships (Primorye,Khakassia). There’s no reason to think it will not lose the next elections to the Duma. That’s why the Presidential administration is trying to change the number of single mandate districts. Navalny, by helping the ‘systemic’ opposition (KPRF) effectively helps the Kremlin, as they will never oppose seriously the PA on serious issues. Putin doesn5seem to be ready to go out so he’ll try to weaken the next president’s hold on power, which is why Volodin has been talking since last year of amending the constitution.
Why Putin does not end the charade of “democracy” and does not declare himself the new Czar?
The globohomo will go apeshit, but what can they do?
More sanctions? 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
https://dailystormer.name/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Screen-Shot-2018-12-14-at-5.50.23-AM.png
https://dailystormer.name/yes-putin-should-be-declared-czar-vladimir-i/
I expect my municipal authorities to provide public goods, not piss away their time politicking. So long as they pick up litter, fill the potholes, clean up the graffiti, tend and expand public spaces, organise transportation, and so on, their tribal preferences should be irrelevant and they should keep them private.
By the way, as a foreigner living in Russia, I generally try to mind my own business. But today I lost my patience. Our local church is behind the Dom Kultury, where polling takes place, and when I walked into church this morning, the sovoks running the polling station were playing loud, obnoxious music that could be heard from the entrance of the church (though fortunately not from inside). As they were still playing it on our way out of church, I took the liberty of unplugging the speaker.
Good thing the nearby policeman and I didn’t notice each other.
extremely unpopular, but the another political forces even more unpopular
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1170804414589865984
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1170815486558441472
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1170851745632833541
Glad your banned you stupid lolbertarian cretin! Fuck your regards onebornfree!
Why do you think we should care about these Moscow elections when even the residents did not, judging by ridiculously low voter turnout?
In a time long past, George Voinovich was elected the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio; of which he was arguably the last mayor to have carried out the job effectively. On that reputation he was later elected two terms as Governor, and then two terms in the Senate.
To have a GOP mayor of a major city was rare in the 1980s, its almost unheard of today, and the GOP mayors that do get elected are either liberals or forced into governing as liberals.
So to have the Mayor of the largest city in the hands of the opposition party, which has effectively not existed in Russia in two decades; would be of enormous prestige.
Think of how Boris Johnson took a supposed “demotion” to London Mayor, to jump past his Conservative Party colleagues in Westminster. (I expect Sadiq Khan is biding his time, he will wait for Corbyn to fall on his own accord, before gunning for the Premiership of the Occupied UK)
Imagine if we elected city councils on a proportional basis, that would give the Right its long denied representation.
They are not electing a mayor, they are electing city council. Mayoral elections would have brought more interest and greater voter turnout (I hope).
100% pure Indo-Aryan genes!
https://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3213/13223519.b1/0_a40c6_ed0f41b1_XL
Did he actually undergo the navjote? Conversions to Zoroastrianism have been going on throughout the CIS and in Russia itself since the 90s. Contrary to the Parsis, who of course strictly forbid it, there’s a few organizations linked to the Iranians that encourage it and perform them.
That’s okay, you too will grow up eventually.
It’s fairly apparent that Navalny’s assigned role by those backing him from abroad is to be a focal point for discontent of the those in power in Russia who stand in the way of being of another US vassal state like the rest of “free” Europe.
With Navalny backing anyone against the Kremlin including the Communists (no fans of Navalny) – which is referred to as part of the systemic opposition as opposed to the 1% “non-systemic opposition” who Western media keeps highlighting – who are even less likely to kow-tow to US-led diktats shows the strategy is simply to stir discontent and end up paralyzing Government so as to give an opening to pro-vassal forces since a direct assault has not worked.
Meanwhile Western media of course is spinning the whole thing as win for Navalny. Wonder how the Communists – the big winners really in Moscow – enjoy that spin.
Both Russia and China are in tension from the growing Libertarian factor initiated by Yeltsin and Deng/Zhang.
If one GOOGLES Russia + protests + libertarian one sees the real problem is the growing ascendancy of the libertarians vs. the hysterical manipulation of the election to keep the Libertarian Party of Russia ( which organized the protests and whose leaders have been jailed ) out…not unlike the USA, where Republicrats manipulate ballot laws to block small parties but subtly favor totalitarian socialists, though more ham-handed. US media is mostly silent, but the media of countries like Russia, Malaysia, India, Spanish-speaking countries are writing articles on the libertarian work for democracy. The end result of Putin’s manipulations is communists winning in many Moscow districts.
The media has been mostly silent on the leadership of the Hong Kong protests by the libertarians there, though this is discussed in libertarian groups and Facebooks.