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Anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin has been rejected by Russian election authorities as a candidate in next month’s presidential vote, a strong signal from the Kremlin that it will not tolerate any public opposition to its invasion of Ukraine.
TALLINN, Estonia — Anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin was removed Thursday as a candidate in next month’s presidential vote by Russian election authorities, a move the Kremlin says will not tolerate any public opposition to the invasion of Ukraine. It was a strong signal.
The Central Election Commission’s move will provide President Vladimir Putin with an even smoother path to winning a fifth term in power. He faces only superficial opposition from pro-Kremlin candidates in the March 15-17 vote, but victory is almost certain given his firm control over Russia’s political system.
Mr. Nadezhdin, a local lawmaker from a town near Moscow, needed to collect the signatures of at least 100,000 supporters, a requirement that applies to candidates from parties without representation in Russia’s parliament.
The Central Election Commission declared the more than 9,000 signatures submitted by Nadejdin’s camp to be invalid, enough to disqualify him. Russian election rules state that no more than 5% of the signatures submitted by potential candidates can be discarded.
Mr. Nadezhdin, 60, has publicly called for an end to the war in Ukraine and the start of dialogue with the West. Last month, thousands of Russians lined up across Russia to sign papers supporting his candidacy, an unusual show of sympathy for the opposition in the country’s tightly controlled political climate. It was an expression.
Nadejdin asked election commission officials on Thursday to postpone the decision, but they refused. He said he would appeal his disqualification in court.
“It’s not me standing here,” Nadejdin said. “I am supported by the hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who have signed the petition on my behalf.”
Putin is running as an independent candidate, and his campaign was required to collect at least 300,000 signatures in support of him. He was quickly allowed to vote earlier this year, and election officials disqualified only 91 of the 315,000 votes his campaign submitted.
Most opposition figures who may have challenged Putin have been jailed or exiled, and the vast majority of Russia’s independent media outlets are banned from broadcasting.
The other three candidates registered to run were nominated by political parties represented in parliament and did not need to collect signatures: Communist Party’s Nikolai Kharitonov, Nationalist Liberal Democratic Party’s Leonid Slutsky, and New Vladislav Dawankov of the People’s Party.
The three parties have mainly supported Kremlin policies. Kharitonov ran against Putin in 2004 and finished a close second.
Exile opposition activists last month endorsed Nadejdin and urged supporters to sign his nomination petition.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin does not consider Nadezhdin a “rival.”
Nadejdin called on his supporters not to give up despite the setbacks.
“One thing happened that many people couldn’t believe: the people felt that change was possible in Russia,” he said in an online statement. “It was you who stood in long lines and declared to the whole world, “Russia will become a great and free country.” And today, I represent each and every one of you in the auditorium of the Central Election Commission. I attended.”
Nadezhdin is the second anti-war candidate to be refused entry to the ballot. In December, the election commission refused to certify Ekaterina Duntsova’s candidacy, citing misspellings and other problems on documents.
Duntsova, a journalist and former parliamentarian from the Tver region north of Moscow, announced plans to take on Putin last year. He promoted the vision of a Russia “peaceful, friendly and ready to cooperate with all peoples on the basis of principles of respect,” calling for a swift end to the fighting in Ukraine and for Moscow and Kiev to enter into negotiations. He said he hopes to have a seat at the table.
Abbas Galiyamov, a former Putin speechwriter turned political analyst, said the decision to exclude Nadezhdin from the vote showed how hollow support for Putin was.
“All the huge popularity of President Putin, which official sociology constantly reports, and all the “rallying around the national leader” that Mr. Peskov regularly talks about, in fact withstands any contact with reality. “It is a highly artificial and unstable structure that cannot be controlled,” he said. He said.
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