Russian opponent Boris Nadezhdin, the only candidate who advocates peace in Ukraine, presented this Wednesday before the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) the necessary signatures to register your candidacy for the presidential elections on March 17, in which the current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, will run for re-election.
“We've done it!” he said on his Telegram channel.
Nadezhdin, 60, collected more than 200,000 signatures since January 8, double the minimum required (100,000) to be able to register his presidential candidacy.
The liberal was able to present the signatures after receiving unanimous support from the opposition in prison and in exile for his promise to stop the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. the first point of his electoral program.
Nadezhdin described the start of the war in Ukraine as a “fatal mistake” and assured that he wants to become president so that Russia is “great, peaceful and free”, although he has not shown himself willing to return to Kiev the territories annexed by the army. Russian.
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Who is Boris Nadezhdin?
Boris Nadezhdin, 60, is a discreet veteran of Russian politics, who surprised by managing to mobilize a multitude of Russian supporters of peace in Ukraine and announcing that he intends to challenge Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections in March.
In a country where criticizing the Kremlin is punishable by prison, His candidacy is a breath of fresh air for the anonymous detractors of the Russian regime, who are looking for a way to express themselves without putting their freedom at risk.
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Over the last 30 years, Nadezhdin has carried out a discreet public career to which he has added a role as an advisor to well-known figures. Apart from a brief stint as a deputy in the lower house of parliament (2000-2003), his elective functions were limited to the local level.
He remains a municipal representative of Dolgoprudni, a city located about 20 km from Moscow, where his parents settled in 1969, when he was six years old.
Born in 1963 in Soviet Uzbekistan, to a music teacher mother of Jewish origin and a Russian physicist, he initially followed in his father's footsteps. “Fortunately or unfortunately he sang very badly (…), so from the beginning he wanted to be a physicist,” he said in December.
Graduated in Physics, and then in Law, He won his first term as a municipal councilor in Dolgoprudni in 1990.
Between 1997 and 1999, according to his official biography, he collaborated with Boris Nemtsov, who became a leader in opposition to Putin, until his assassination in 2015. Boris Nadezhdin then collaborated with Sergei Kirienko, then liberal prime minister and today a key figure in the Kremlin.
The opponent says that he worked with Putin during his first term, but says that he broke off relations in 2003, during the arrest of the opposition member and director of the Yukos oil group, Mijail Khodorkovski.
“I have been criticizing Vladimir Putin for decades,” who “has concentrated too much power in his hands,” he says.
In an interview with AFP last week, Nadezhdin called the Russian offensive against Ukraine a “nightmare” and denounced Putin's quarter-century of authoritarian drift. “My candidacy gives people a unique opportunity to legally protest against the current policy,” says the strong, gray-bearded man.
Among his electoral promises are the cessation of fighting, an end to the “militarization” of Russia and the release of “all political prisoners,” like the opposition Alexei Navalni.
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This almost unknown opponent affirms that he does not know why he has escaped jail until now, when other militants have been imprisoned for statements like his. Perhaps Putin “doesn't consider me a terrible threat,” he admits.
The Kremlin does not hide its contempt. “We do not consider him an adversary,” declared Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Russian president.
Little known outside the tiny liberal environment, Nadezhdin says he took the plunge in October because no prominent anti-Putin figure had taken the step. He cites among them the former mayor of Yekaterinburg, Evgueni Roizman, or the Nobel Peace Prize winner and director of the opposition newspaper Novaia Gazeta, Dmitri Muratov.
“I know it will be hard to beat Putin,” he admits, although he hopes for a good result, which will mean “the beginning of the end” of the Russian president's era.
Nadezhdin presented more than 100,000 signatures of support to the electoral commission on Wednesday, a mandatory step to validate his candidacy. “Thank you very much to those who have believed in us,” he declared to the press. “No one believed it a month ago and some still doubted it two weeks ago.” “Millions of people support (me),” he added.
The electoral commission must make a decision within 10 days, during which it will verify the “authenticity” of the signatures provided.
Analysts and opponents believe that Nadezhdin has very little chance of being registered, since the Presidential Administration fears that it will bring together all those dissatisfied not only with the war, but with the authoritarian drift of the Kremlin.
Nadezhdin has assured that he will go to court and request authorization to call protest demonstrations if he is not registered.
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The CEC registered this Monday the candidacy of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who as an independent had to present 300,000 signatures.
His co-religionists collected 3.5 million signatures, which was questioned by Nadezhdin, who asked: “Where are the queues in favor of Putin?”
Although he publicly stated that he would not do so, Putin reformed the Constitution in 2020 to be able to run for re-election, something that he will be able to do again in six years and, in this way, remain in the Kremlin until 2036.
Putin, 71 years old and whose management is approved by 80% of Russians, according to official polls, should win the elections with more votes than in 2018, when he received more than 76% of the votes.
The CEC had so far registered four candidates: Putin; the communist Nikolai Kharitonov; the ultranationalist Leonid Slutski and the representative of New People, Vladislav Davankov.
AFP and EFE
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