The article itself is very good, with a professional legal analysis of the situation. But the way the question is framed...
Does Vladimir Putin have the right to vote and run for office? What about Igor Shuvalov? And do Gennady Zyuganov and Grigory Yavlinsky have that right?
Do Semyon Semyonych Gorbunkov (a fictional everyman from the classic Soviet comedy *The Diamond Arm*) and everyone reading this post have it?
So tomorrow United Russia could pass a law banning me from buying groceries in a store—then what? Are we going to discuss what Navalny should do now: order bread online or file a case with the Constitutional Court?
My friends, this is not just about me. The first rule of Putin’s group when it comes to elections is: do everything possible to keep any candidate (or party) who could even theoretically threaten the political status quo from being allowed to participate.
The brief liberalization of the electoral process in 2013 clearly showed them—in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk—that this rule must never be relaxed.
In the most recent State Duma elections, they even purged the Party of Pensioners once it grew bold enough to nominate single-member district candidates without Kremlin approval.
That’s the thing about elections: they require candidates and parties. We can be great, decent, creative, hardworking—but without candidates, nothing will come of it.
That is why we lose at the very moment we start seriously debating: does this adult citizen of sound legal capacity have electoral rights?
Yes. Everyone has them. The Russian Constitution answers this question clearly, and there can be no double interpretation here.
Is Alexei Navalny being held in a penal institution? Not yet. So the matter is settled.
And once again: this is not about me. We must apply this approach to all citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or views.
The moment we take even one step to the side, a broadly smiling V.V. Putin and his team say to each other: okay, they’re playing our game, and soon they’ll move from stage 3 (bargaining) to stage 4 (depression). When they reach stage five, we’ll offer them a nice candidate to unite around.
And the sixth stage will be the traditional one—self-flagellation and masochistic groans of “why is the opposition so weak and unable to agree with one another?”
And the seventh stage could look like this:
Surely you don’t want to be reading op-eds titled, “Do we even have the right to go without muzzles sometimes?”