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It’s an uncomfortable January day in Moscow. Temperatures are around freezing, it continues to snow and the sidewalks are muddy. Nevertheless, a long line of people has once again formed outside the office of Boris Nadezhdin, 60, an opposition war opponent who wants to challenge Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, 71, in the March 17 presidential election. Is he the hope of Russia?
To get Nadezhdin approved as a candidate, he needs at least 105,000 signatures from citizens. That is why, even in bad weather, Muscovites go to the office to sign for the opposition.
Young and old people came, students and retirees, men and women. The people at the front of the line say they waited in line for about an hour. The police have taken up positions across the street.
“Anti-war policy needed”
“He is the only applicant who openly opposes the special military operation,” Yuri (68) says about Nadezhdin. “In my opinion, a candidate with an anti-war policy is what we need,” says Anna (20), who is a few steps behind Juri.
From the Kremlin’s point of view, the presidential elections, which are overshadowed by allegations of fraud and manipulation, actually serve only one purpose: they are intended to secure Putin’s fifth term in office and at the same time show how much the people supposedly still support the elections are on. war against Ukraine, even after about two years. Instead, the candidate, who is the only one who categorically rejects this invasion, is now making headlines – and therefore unexpectedly gaining a lot of support in Russia.
Born in Tashkent in present-day Uzbekistan during the Soviet era, Nadezhdin is anything but a newcomer to Russian politics. He served in the Duma from 1999 to 2003 for the liberal bloc ‘Union of Right Forces’ and later switched parties several times.
Nadezhdin was considered a pragmatist – now he is a bearer of hope
The politician has contacts in the presidential administration and has appeared for years on political talk shows on state television – to the annoyance of other members of the opposition. Nadezhdin was previously considered a pragmatist who sometimes cooperated with those in power when it seemed useful to his own ends.
Now things are different: Nadezhdin is on a confrontational course towards the Kremlin. He does formulate things carefully when it comes to criticism of the war; After all, such criticism has already landed many other opposition members in prison camps in recent months.
So Nadezhdin repeatedly speaks of ‘all this’ when he means the war, and of ‘there’ when talking about Ukraine. But his message is clear: “The country wants this all to stop. People want those who are there to return,” he said during a recent election campaign, where he appeared alongside women who want their mobilized men back from the front.
The fact that opposition figures like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in exile, and jailed Putin opponent Alexei Navalny are now calling for support for Nadezhdin is giving him a boost. And Kremlin critic Yekaterina Duntsova, who actually wanted to become a presidential candidate herself, also sided with Nadezhdin after the Russian election commission expelled her from the race in early December.
Nadezhdin received 200,000 votes
With all this support, Nadezhdin finally reached a milestone: late last week, his team announced that around 200,000 citizen signatures had been collected across the country – far more than needed to register as a candidate. Whether Nadezhdin will actually appear on the ballot paper remains highly questionable.
“I don’t think that is very realistic, because they want to fully control the elections,” said journalist and political analyst Andrei Pertsev in an interview with the German Press Agency about the interests of the Kremlin. “But Nadezhdin is rallying the protest electorate behind him.”
It is possible that the Kremlin was initially sympathetic to Nadezhdin’s request – seeing him as a welcome pseudo-rival who suggests a choice where in reality there is none. But Nadezhdin has long felt uncomfortable with his open criticism of the war, says Perzev, who lives in exile and works for the independent Russian portal Meduza and the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The Kremlin does not see him as a competitor
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently said when journalists asked him about Nadezhdin: “We do not consider him a competitor.” But Pertsev is convinced that if Nadezhdin were actually approved as a candidate, it would be a “real risk” for the Kremlin, given the war-weariness of many Russians.
Moreover, the expert explains that this is a particularly good time to stop Nadezhdin from the perspective of the power apparatus: the requirements for approval as a candidate are complex and the formalities required for citizens’ signatures are high. It would therefore be easy for the election commission, which must assess the signatures before February 10, to deny Nadezhdin candidate status on any pretext.
“There are opponents of the war in Russia”
Many of Nadezhdin’s supporters also know that a war opponent like him has little chance in Putin’s Russia, which is becoming increasingly repressive towards dissidents. Many saw their signature mainly as an opportunity to finally express their dissatisfaction again, while anti-war protests had been brutally suppressed for a long time.
A woman – Natalja, 34 years old – explicitly asks to be included in this article. There are many war supporters in Russia, but the world needs to see that there are also war opponents, she says. The many people in line cheered her on. Referring to Nadezhdin, she adds: “Even if he doesn’t win, I now know I’m not alone. That there are many people who do not support all this and who want the war to end as quickly as possible.” (SDA/jwg)
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
