Landed, in trouble: Alexei Navalny returns to Russia

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Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. In Germany, the party of Angela Merkel has elected Armin Laschet as its new leader. He has a strong chance of becoming the country's next chancellor. We look at the battles still facing him and what the changing of the guard will mean for Europe. And a Korean immigrant family making its way in the backwaters of Arkansas is standard American dream fare. We examine a film that was a hit at Sundance but ineligible for Best Picture at the Golden Globes because much of it is in Korean. First up though.

Dear customers, this is your captain. I ask you to follow the rules of government of passengers on board of our.

In Berlin yesterday, the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny ordered a plane to head home to Moscow five months after he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok. His homecoming was no secret. The plane was packed with journalists and supporters who applauded when he got on board. But things didn't exactly go to plan, prompting international outcry. It's clear that Mr. Navalny's return is putting President Vladimir Putin in a tough spot in dealing with his most vocal opponent.

This was probably the most surreal flight I've certainly ever been on.

Our Russia editor, Arkady Ostrovsky was on board with Mr. Navalny.

It turned into a bit of a political circus. Everybody knew at boarding that Alexei Navalny was going to be on that flight. He was the last to get on the plane. He refused to answer any questions. He was surrounded by journalists through the entire flight. He was just with his wife, his press secretary, watching a movie. And the flight was going to the destination that was announced on boarding to Vnukovo Airport.

Dear friends, this is your captain. Just now our way is Cheremita in the ocean. I will advise you.

About 10 minutes before it started descent, the pilot came with an announcement saying, oops, sorry for technical reasons, we have to divert this plane to a different airport. The real difficulty was in fact that there was a massive crowd gathered at that airport and the Kremlin was desperately trying to avoid giving Navalny a chance to be greeted by his supporters and to have those pictures spread all over the social media.

And so what happened when the plane actually landed?

Navalny got off the plane with all the journalists surrounding him. He was taken by bus to the terminal building. And as he was walking towards passport control, he suddenly spotted a large lit panorama picture of the Kremlin on his left side. And being a politician, and being a media savvy politician, he stopped immediately and he gave a sort of a mini press conference, Apologizing first for causing trouble and inconvenience to everybody who had to be diverted. He said he was not afraid of anything because the truth was on his side. And with that, he went to passport control and I was right behind him. And there was a pause and we were standing at the passport control. His lawyer got through. Navalny said to the border guard, you must have been missing me. The border guard took a while, then called the police and Navalny was escorted into the gray zone of Sheremetyev airport.

So he was arrested on the spot. I mean, what reasons were given for that arrest?

So there were no reasons given. They said they wanted to clarify a few things. It's almost comical because the reason they want to arrest him is for breaking parole on a suspended sentence in the case, which was over overturned by the European Court of Human Rights. And the reason he missed his parole is because he was busy surviving the attack with Novichok nerve agent in a Berlin clinic.

And you've known Mr. Navalny for some years. Why did he decide to return on pain of arrest or worse?

The reason he decided to return is that he is a politician. What politicians do, they fight for power. You can't fight for power in Russia sitting abroad, being in exile. Look, he feels the truth is on his side, and it is actually on his side. He hasn't done anything wrong, apart from in the Kremlin's point of view, what he's done wrong is to survive an assassination attempt. What he's done wrong is then to uncover the plot to poison him with Novichok nerve agent and the names of those who did it. That is unforgivable crime. But from Navalny's point of view, this is his country and he's come back to his country to continue what he does, to fight for power without even.

Just a little fear for his life.

Look, we don't know what's going inside any head. I think that's what marks him out as a politician. This is not something you and I probably would do precisely because we're not politicians, because we're driven by different instincts. What I saw when I interviewed him back in October in Berlin is this absolute resolution, and he was ready for absolutely anything. I think for somebody who actually, as he kept saying, had already died once, who's been on the other side, as it were, who's been in a coma for so long, I think your perspective probably changes. In his eyes, I could see absolutely no fear or hesitation. I don't think that you can do this job as a politician in Russia if you have fear. It's a country of raw power.

And so what does it tell you about that power struggle now that the regime would go to this trouble to create this media circus on the return of its biggest opposition politician?

What it tells you is that Kremlin, I don't think, has a plan and doesn't have many good options. It wants control. Navalny has been ahead of them for some time. Navalny has pushed them into a corner because Putin could not afford to let him go off the plane free, and certainly not after Navalny directly accused him of an assassination attempt. So Putin could not have just let him walk off the plane, not least because of the loss of face he would have suffered even amongst his own entourage. Putting Navalny in jail straight away and locking him out for a long time is not a very good option either, because it will most certainly raise Navalny's profile. So the Kremlin doesn't have many good options.

Given those few options, how do you see this playing out? What do you think happens next?

My sense is that at this stage, the Kremlin and Putin cannot afford to have Alexei Navalny walking the streets of Moscow free, campaigning and continuing his political life. So I think the Kremlin's instinct this time will be to lock him up. How long Alexei Navalny stays in jail will depend on. On a lot of factors, including what the reaction it produces in the society, how many people actually could take to the streets. There is even no certainty that Alexei Navalny will come out of jail alive. But then, on the perhaps more optimistic note, nothing of what has happened with Alexei Navalny has gone according to the Kremlin's plot. The politician like that was not supposed to arise in Russia. He was not supposed to gain such following. He was not supposed to survive the assassination attempt. It's a banal thing to say. But life is full of surprises and politics, and Alexei Navalny story is nothing but an ordinary one. So he escaped unscathed few times before. Let's hope he can do so again.

Arkady, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

For more analysis like this from our international network of correspondence, take out a subscription to the Economist. Get a great introductory deal@Equality.com IntelligenceOffer the link is in the show Notes this weekend, Germany took its first step into a new political era. On Saturday, Armin Laschet was elected leader of Angela Merkel's party, the Christian Democratic Union, or cdu, making him well placed to succeed her as the country's next chancellor. Mr. Laschet, who currently leads the western state of North Rhine Westphalia, was a moderate choice to lead the Center Right party. In his final speech as a candidate, he warned against the dangers of political polarization, nicht kaputmachen. But he's by no means guaranteed to be Germany's next leader. While the CDU has led Germany for all but 20 of the past 72 years, its efforts to maintain its image as the party of power and unity are being tested, throwing into question not just the future direction of the party, but of Germany itself.

So the Christian Democrats have been essentially looking for a new leader for almost a year.

Tom Nuttall is the Economist's Berlin bureau chief.

In essence, the campaign was extended for such a long period because of the pandemic. There were two party congresses that were meant to be held to choose a new leader, and they both had to be cancelled. In the end, they decided to do it digitally.

And who is Mr. Laschet? What did he run on?

Armin Lashet represents continuity, Merkelism. That's certainly how he presented himself in the campaign. That's not a bad way of understanding the way that he has governed in North Rhine Westphalia, the big state in Germany's west that he's been in charge of since 2017. He's a moderate, he's a pragmatist. He likes to build bridges to opponents. He likes to sort of incorporate different views into his governing style. He doesn't particularly seem to have a very strong set of ideological political propositions. And when you talk to people close to him, they always emphasize the manner in which he governs rather than the substance of his political beliefs. A few days before the CDU vote, I went to Dusseldorf and met with Serab Guler, a close ally and a strong supporter of Armin Laschet, and she explained to me why she was backing him for the leadership we need in this time with Corona and after Corona, a leader who can integrate, who can.

Bring different positions together.

Was it a close run thing? Yeah.

His margin of victory over Friedrich Met, who wanted to take the party in a more conservative direction, was pretty small, about 53% to 47%. There is, and has been for quite a long time now, a strong part of the CDU that has grown tired of the moderate centrism pursued by Angela Merkel, that have craved what they often call a more clear path, by which they mean a switch to the right on everything from fiscal policy to immigration. And Fridic Metz, for better or for worse, became sort of the figurehead, the vessel for those hopes. Now, Laschet is not going to be the best person to try to integrate those hopes because he represents continuity Merkluzm. So that's going to be an early test for him to figure out exactly how to satisfy the very substantial part of the party that is going to be very disappointed by his victory.

Any guesses as to what sorts of positions he would take as Chancellor if he were to get there? Yeah.

One thing that we do know about Ahmed Lashid is he doesn't really seem to sit outside of the mainstream in his party on fiscal policy. The CDU famously is a party of what they would consider to be fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets. Obviously, Germany is, like everywhere is running a huge deficit at the moment. But Armin Laschett has said that he thinks Germany should return to a balanced budget policy. The famous Schwarzenull Black0 by 2024. He hasn't given us very many details on how he would plan to do that if that would mean spending cuts or tax rises. Armin Lashet, as a state leader, does not have a great many foreign policy responsibilities, but we have seen over the, a tendency towards dovishness on authoritarian states like Russia and China, some rather worrying statements about the Middle East, Syria and.

Isis, and in terms of establishing who will in fact end up as chancellor, what happens next?

Okay, so the crucial next step is that the CDU will have to get together with its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, and come up with a joint candidate for the Chancellorship. We expect that to happen in spring, March, April time. Armin Lashet, as head of the larger party, would be assumed to have the stronger claim. And he certainly, after his win on Saturday, has a bit of momentum. His difficulty is that the head of the CSU and also the premier of Bavaria, a charismatic, confident man called Markus Zurda, is far more popular than Mr. Laschet. Both amongst the CDU CSU voters specifically, but also among German voters more broadly. Mr. Zurda always says that he has no ambitions beyond Bavaria, but he has signally refused to rule out putting himself forward for the candidacy. So this is going to be something to watch very closely in the months ahead. And in particular, we'll need to watch what happens to the CDU's popularity and opinion polls now that they have a new leader. And also what happens in two state elections in March in Rhineland Palatinate and Baden Wurttemberg. If those go well for the CDU, then that's going to be a big boost for Mr. Laschet's claims to win the candidacy soon afterwards. Conversely, if they go badly, then a lot of people are going to start looking towards Bavaria for salvation in Mr. Zurda.

So in that sense, it's kind of a two way race.

There is a third possibility. Jens Spahn, the popular health minister who's been in charge of the pandemic response. He backed Mr. Laschet's leadership campaign. But there's nothing stopping the CDU CSU from choosing somebody else to lead the parties into the election campaign. Mr. Spahn certainly had those sorts of ambitions. There are plenty in the CDU who'd prefer to see him do it than Mr. Laschet. Looking at opinion polls now, it's very difficult to imagine that Germany's next chancellor, the successor to Angela Merkel, will not be the candidate from the CDU csu.

So if all of the pieces of the puzzle fall the way they seem likely to at this stage, where does that place Germany in Europe going forward, do you think?

Well, everybody in Europe is watching Germany very closely. Obviously Angela Merkel has been at the heart of the endless crises that Europe has been managing over the last decade or so. And it's going to be potentially a bit of a trauma, not only for Germany, but for Europe when she finally leaves. I think in terms of policy and substance, if it is Armin Lashic who takes over from her, then Europeans don't necessarily have very much to worry about. But of course he doesn't have the experience, he doesn't have the stature, he doesn't have the connections and the networks. So it's going to take him a while to bed in and that's going to leave Europe a little bit rudderless for a while.

Tom, thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks, Jason.

In Hollywood, a film about a Korean family pursuing the American dream on a rural Arkansas farm is at the center of some off screen drama.

How's your daddy like that new farm.

He draws things good, doing things right.

Yes.

Minari earned rave reviews from critics on its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. But now it's making headlines for a different reason.

Grandma smells like Korea.

Yeah.

Minari is a film that written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, based on his parents experience as Korean immigrants in Arkansas.

Noah Getel writes about culture for the Economist.

But because the majority of its dialogue is in Korean, it was recently announced that it will not be eligible for Best Picture Drama at the upcoming Golden Globe Awards and instead is being relegated to the Best Foreign Language Film category. When it is a film made by an American about the American experience and produced and released first in America, what.

Exactly are the rules about this?

So the rules have changed a little bit over the years, but currently the Hollywood Foreign Press association, who puts on the Golden Globes, has a rule that any film with less than 50% of its dialogue in English is only eligible for the best Foreign Language Film category and not eligible for either Best Picture Drama or Best Picture Comedy or musical.

And so how have people responded to this decision about what appears to be so far a very well loved film?

Well, there's been a lot of outrage about it so far, particularly from Asian American filmmakers. They've been the loudest voices in opposition to this categorization. Lulu Wang, whose film the Farewell was similarly categorized last year, spoke out against it on Twitter. And actor Daniel Dae Kim, who is an Asian American actor, quite prominent, said that this was the film equivalent of being told to go back to your country when your country is actually America. But the Hollywood Foreign Press association notes that they have applied this rule consistently through the years. Other films, such as Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima or Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, which are largely in foreign languages, were also relegated to this category. Critics of the decision, however, feel that it's time for a change and that Minari is a uniquely American film about the American experience.

Well, and this also perhaps constrains its future when it comes to things like the Oscars.

The Oscars have different rules when it comes to these categories. They have a category called Best International Film, in which every country submits one film to be recognized and the Academy picks five to be nominated. It is not based on language. It is based on country of origin. The Golden Globes category is based on language. So there's a real discrepancy here. And Minari is in danger of falling through the cracks.

But insofar as it loses that fair shake, perhaps at the Golden Globes, then all this attention on that fact may be the push that it needs.

I would agree. I think there's a very good chance that it wins the best foreign language film category, in part because it's an excellent film with a lot of support, but also because people may rally around it due to this controversy. And frankly, for a small film like Minari that doesn't have major stars or a major director attached, this controversy is incredibly valuable and earns them a lot of media that major studios like to pay for at this time of year.

Noah, thank you very much for your time. You're welcome. That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and see you back here tomorrow. Sam.