*Putin’s Russia Fells A Titan
*The End of an Era in Indonesia
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Navalny of Russia
Alexei Navalny’s mother Lyudmila has been unable to recover his body after his sudden death in an Artic jail, a close aide to the dead Russian opposition leader says.
She was told his body would only be handed over once a post-mortem examination had been completed.
Navalny’s team believes the anti-corruption campaigner was murdered on the orders of President Vladimir Putin (BBC/ James Gregory).
A rights group said 300 Russians had been arrested for laying tributes.
Western governments say the blame lies with Russian authorities for the 47-year-old’s sudden death, while foreign ministers from the G-7 group of rich countries called on Russia to “urgently clarify” the circumstances surrounding the mysterious and sudden death.
Putin himself has not publicly commented since the Russian prison service announced last Friday that Navalny had been suddenly taken ill and died at the remote prison in the Artic Circle.
Navalny was one of the most prominent faces of Russian opposition to Putin’s autocratic regime and was serving a three-decade sentence [!] for politically motivated charges at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km north of Moscow.
Protests Against the Vile Regime
Meanwhile, more than 300 people have been arrested following vigils and gatherings across Russia, according to independent Russian rights monitoring group OVD-Info.
OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, said arrests had taken place in 32 cities, with the largest numbers in the capital Moscow and St.Petersburg.
On Saturday, police in Moscow detained about 15 people who had laid flowers and lit candles at the foot of the “Wall of Grief” monument to the victims of repression during the Soviet era.
Protests are also being held near Russian embassies in many countries.
Reactions at the Munich Security Conference
G-7 foreign ministers meeting at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) last Saturday observed a minute’s silence to pay tribute to the Russian activist.
British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said
“When appaling human rights outrages like this take place, what we do is we look at whether there are individual people that are responsible and whether there are individual measures and actions we can take,” said Cameron, who added that he would not share in advance what measures the UK intended (BBC).
Also in Munich was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who described Putin as a “thug” and said it was “absurd” to perceive him as the legitimate head of a Russian state.”
Navalny had been an outspoken critic of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine which began two years ago on February 22.
Supporters’ Grief, Defiance & Hope
Russian TV devoted just 28 seconds to the news about Alexei Navalny – so to say, just in passing.
And this for Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and the country’s most.
He may not have been supported by all Russians, but for a decade he was the only opposition figure in Russia capable of bringing large numbers of protesters on to the streets across the country – to protest against the government, condemn corruption and demand free and fair elections (BBC/Steve Rosenberg).
Thus, the Kremlin perceived him as the gravest threat.
“Navalny had charisma and strength of character, as well as a sense of humour and the ability to inspire – rare for a Russian politician” (Rosenberg/BBC) [and, of course, completely absent in Putin].
Previous Physical Attacks Against Navalny
In 2017 his eyesight was damaged when he was splashed with a green antiseptic dye.
Three years later in Siberia he was poisoned with a nerve agent and airlifted to Germany for life-saving treatment. He survived and accused the Kremlin of trying to murder him.
And yet the following year – despite grave concerns for his safety – he returned to Russia.
Why did Navalny Return to Russia?
Perhaps the “inner politician” was telling him at home he had to be in Russia. But almost immediately he ended up in prison (BBC).
Will there be political consequences?
As the world is reeling from the tragic news of Alexei Navalny’s death at the hands of the brutal Putin regime, there is little visible pushback from within Russian society (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).
Moscow-based Andrei Kolesnikov delivers a devastating assessment of the passivity and inertia that shape Russian popular attitudes towards a uniquely defiant opposition leader.
“See no evil, hear no evil, distance yourself from the latest bad news, only believe the official version: the conformist majority behaved the same way in every similar situation, including when Navalny was poisoned,” he writes. “It’s easier to live and think like that – or rather, not to think at all” (Carnegie, Feb. 16).
Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, writes in the Financial Times: “In the years since [fellow opposition leader] Boris Nemtsov was murdered in 2015, Russia has transformed from a dictatorship of deception to a dictatorship of fear and then, after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, into an outright dictatorship of terror”.
Indonesia’s New Leader
The world’s fourth-largest country by population and most-populous Muslim country, Indonesia is coming off a decade of relative stability under President Joko Widodo, aka Jokowi, Ruchir Sharma writes in a Financial Times column.
Since 2014, Jokowi has run the country as a calm and responsible technocrat, a man of the people who nonetheless avoids populism.
Indonesia fell short of his 7 % percent – a – year GDP-growth promise, Sharma writes, but its 4 – to – 5 % percent growth (outside the pandemic years) was steady and comforting.
People inside and outside Indonesia fear all that may change.
Indonesia has just elected Widodo’s successor: Prabowo Subianto, a former army lieutenant general with a controversial past who chose Jokowi’s eldest son as his running mate.
Prabowo has been accused of ordering the kidnapping of pro-democracy activists in the 1990s, in the final months of the dreaded Suharto dictatorship, and of having been associated with human rights abuses in East Timor during Indonesia’s decades-long occupation. Prabowo has denied wrongdoing.
Describing Prabowo’s past as “sordid”, The Economist’s pseudonymous Banyan columnist, who covers Asia, wrote before the election that Prabowo is known “for having an explosive temper” and is “immensely rich, with fingers in many pies…Backed by a canny social-media campaign, he wants voters to know him as a cuddly grandpa.” Banyan can attest to his charm.
Younger voters know little of his dark past; the Indonesian press and television rarely mention it.
At Nikkei Asia, an op-ed by Ella S. Prihatini warns less of Prabowo and more of corruption and dynastic politics.
Disconcerting as all that may be, not everyone is worried.
In a Foreign Affairs essay, Ben Bland laments that international commentators tend to paint Indonesia as a testing ground for democracy that’s always “at a crossroads”.
But things are more complicated, and Prabowo wouldn’t be able to govern as a dictator even if he wanted to.
“To win policy victories,” Bland writes, “Indonesian presidents have to manage the multiple, often querulous parties in their coalitions; align ministries with overlapping roles and competing bureaucratic interests; and get sign-off for decisions from many layers of local government…Indonesian public opinion, too, now constraints Indonesian presidents…And the bulk of Prabowo’s supporters want him to lead Indonesia’s democracy, not dismantle it – even if they like his tough talk.”
Why Indonesia Matters
Indonesia matters because of where it is, what it is, and what it has.
- Geography
Indonesia is located right at the nucleus of two significant crossroads: the ‘East-West’ (between the Pacific and Indian Oceans) and the ‘North-South’ (between Asia and Australia).
This proximity gives it power in two ways.
First, It sits on and co-controls one of the world’s most important trade arteries: the Strait of Malacca. Together with the Straits of Sunda and Lombok, it’s the main passage for energy, raw materials, and goods to get in and out of the South China Sea, the world’s busiest maritime region (International Intrigue, Feb. 11).
Second, it’s in a region that’s already ground zero for US-China rivalry, with each competitor offering twp distinct visions for how the Indo-Pacific [or Asia-Pacific] should look.
These two factors mean not just the US and China, but also India, Japan, Australia, the EU put a high priority on keeping Indonesia on side.
- Geopolitics
Indonesia is big, but it’s also highly preoccupied.
A nation of 280 million people meant that the country required more election workers on election day than the whole population of Denmark.
It’s also on track to become the world’s 6th largest economy by 2027.
With hundreds of distinct communities and ethnic groups spread across 17,000 islands, Jakarta has long felt a nagging sense of insecurity as it deals with the ebb and flow of various insurgencies, secessionists, territorial disputes, and jihadis.
It’s all led successive generations of Indonesian leaders and elites to view the nation’s size less as an asset and more as a vulnerability to be managed.
Thus, Indonesia’s approach to the world is guided by dynamic non-alignment [ it was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the first meeting of the group took place in Bandung near Jakarta ] driven by a sense that it has enough problems at home.
However, that stance is becoming harder to maintain, making the next president’s policy choices critical.
- Economic Trajectory
Indonesia has performed an economic miracle.
It contracted by more than 60 % percent after the Asian Financial Crisis 1997 before growing by nearly 800 % percent till today.
It really accelerated under Jokowi, averaging out at 10 % percent compound annual growth rate since 2000.
And the IMF is forecasting at least 5 % percent annual growth over the next five years, which would make it the 6th largest economy in the world by PPP.
One would also have to highlight the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, youthful demographics, huge and growing consumer base, recovering tourism industry, and thriving startup sector.
Indonesia should be an inspiration for other Asian developing countries like Nepal.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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