Analysis: What About Alexei Navalny Terrified Putin To The Core
NDTV
What made Alexei Navalny so important was his decision to become an anti-corruption crusader in 2008.
Alexei Navalny was a giant figure in Russian politics. No other individual rivalled the threat he posed to the Putin regime. His death in an Arctic labour camp is a blow to all those who dreamed he might emerge as the leader of a future democratic Russia. If, to prevent war, we need to fill up the jails and police vans, we will fill up the jails and police vans.
What made Navalny so important was his decision to become an anti-corruption crusader in 2008. Using shareholder activism and his popular blog, he shone a spotlight on the corruption schemes that enabled officials to steal billions from state-run corporations.
His breakthrough came in 2011, when he proposed the strategy of voting for any party but President Vladimir Putin's “party of crooks and thieves” in the Duma (parliament) elections. Faced with a collapse of support, the regime resorted to widespread election fraud. The result was months of pro-democracy protests.