Navalny's phenomenon

Tens of thousands of Internet users could observe the debate of the rector of the Higher School of Economics, Yaroslav Kuzminov, with the famous blogger, lawyer, creator of the Rospil portal Alexei Navalny. They argued (the verbal duel lasted more than three hours) about the fate of the notorious 94th Federal Law on State Counsics, the new concept of which was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development and the Higher School of Economics. In his blog, Navalny accused the authors of amendments of his intention to cancel open electronic auction: as a result, taxpayers will be again deprived of the opportunity to control the public procurement process. Kuzminov rejected the prosecution and called a lawyer to a verbal duel. A live broadcast from the audience of the Higher School of Economics, which was able to accommodate only a small part of those who wanted to watch them live, organized the largest Internet media: the website of the agency RIA Novosti, Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, the Rain TV channel, and Radio Liberty. Dozens of sympathizers organized an online response of the Twitter event under the hashtag #debaty. A couple of years ago, it was simply impossible to imagine such a public and media resonance on an entry on a blog. But this is the phenomenon of Navalny, which managed to prove that it is possible to effectively fight corrupt bureaucrats alone, relying on the support of the "Party of the Internet", as it became accepted today to the civilian part of the virtual community. Over and over again, Navalny proves: this is a myth that it is impossible to deal with the authorities - it is possible and necessary, he claims.

Navalny VS Kuzminov (full version) 03/18/2011