In any country, these images would perhaps be innocuous, but in Russia, there is something exceptional about them: in several cities across the country, in freezing cold, citizens line up to support with a signature an openly anti-war presidential candidate.
This candidate is Boris Nadezhdine, whose name precisely resembles the word “hope” in Russian (“nadejda”). Accepted by the Russian electoral commission last December, his candidacy passed the first stage of the electoral process on December 28. From now on, he must reach 100,000 signatures in at least 40 different regions of Russia, before January 31, to be able to officially participate in the presidential election on March 17.
A 60-year-old politician, Boris Nadezhdine presented his candidacy for the election last year, via his “Citizens’ Initiative” party, and does not mince his words about his intentions: “Vladimir Putin must go.” According to his party’s manifesto, “the president sees the world from the past and takes Russia into the past. Russia needs a future – the future of a country that free and educated people will admire and in which they will want to live.
Supported by the opposition in exile
Thanks to his proposals for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and the end of the “special military operation” in the long term – he is the only candidate to dare to propose peace – Boris Nadezhdine attracted the sympathies of Ekaterina Dountsova another anti-war candidate whose candidacy was not accepted for election due to a “document error” last December. Withdrawn from the presidential race, the latter immediately called for support for Boris Nadejdine. Opposition journalist and editor-in-chief of “Echo of Moscow” radio, Alexei Venediktov, a media figure of the liberal left still present in Russia, also relayed the call for signatures from Nadezhdine’s party.
The candidate can also be pleased to bring together in his support important figures of the opposition in exile, from the ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky via the political scientist Ekaterina Schulman to the sulphurous blogger Maxim Katz. The latter, with a large audience on social networks, was the first to call for support for Nadejdine.
What’s more, the candidate accomplished the feat of bringing together the support of several members of the team of imprisoned opponent Alexeï Navalny, including Lyoubov Sobol and Ivan Zhdanov. “Since there are not many safe methods of protest today, why not vote for Nadezhdine, and use him as a means of protest? Certainly, Nadezhdine is not my ideal: my candidate remains Navalny. […] He remains a politician with a long and ambiguous history, but give him my signature, why not?” explained the latter on his YouTube channel.
A strong opponent of Putin?
Boris Nadejdine represents the only legal means left for voters to express their opposition to the war. But opponents also know that he does not represent a real alternative to power, in particular because of his atypical political career. Municipal deputy in the Moscow region in the early 1990s, he then became Boris Nemtsov’s assistant when he was Prime Minister (becoming a major opposition figure, he was assassinated in 2015 in Moscow). Boris Nadezhdine then allied himself with Sergeï Kiriyenko, today head of the presidential administration in the Kremlin.
After Putin came to power in 2000, he joined the camp of “liberals” tolerated by the Putin regime, and was a mandated observer of the 2012 presidential election by United Russia, before participating in a presidential party primary. in 2015, without being invested. “During this debate, I blew them away […] But as it was agreed in advance that I was not going to be appointed [devant Vladimir Poutine, NDLR]we agreed to give me second place”, he justifies himself in an interview for the Russian media Fontanka. He claims to have no longer been in contact with members of the presidential administration since 2020.
This candidate known in the past for his complacency with power structures would remain with the blessing of the Kremlin in the 2024 presidential race only to play the role of a principled liberal opponent of the president. In 2018, blogger Ksenia Sobchak was used in this way, obtaining only 1.68% of the votes. By allowing a “liberal” candidate to collect a few percentages of votes without ever threatening the re-election of the president, the Kremlin maintains the democratic illusion in the country.
Observers nevertheless believe that it will not pass the final stage of validation by the electoral commission. According to the independent media Meduza, “no candidate critical of the special military operation will appear on the ballot.” The six other candidates will take on this role. Enough to dash the brief hope embodied by Boris Nadejdine.