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Russia’s electoral authority has moved to ban the only anti-war candidate, who has garnered more support than anticipated, from running against Vladimir Putin in presidential elections in March.
The Central Election Commission found a 15 per cent error rate in the signatures collected by the campaign of Boris Nadezhdin, he wrote on Telegram on Monday. This exceeds the five per cent threshold that is allowed under electoral rules for a candidate to be registered.
While a final decision about his candidacy is due on Wednesday, the error rate and a smear campaign in state-controlled media highlighted the Kremlin’s concern about the unexpected show of support for the 60-year old pacifist.
“We plan to contest the [invalid] signatures,” Nadezhdin pledged, adding that his campaign needs to prove that half of the 9,000-plus signatures which have been deemed invalid were, in fact, accurate.
The electoral commission first reported errors last week, citing “tens of people who no longer live in this world, yet they signed”.
In Russia, a presidential candidate can run if they are being put forward by a parliamentary party or if, like Nadezhdin, they run on behalf of a non-parliamentary party representative and gather 100,000 signatures, or if they collect 300,000 signatures as an independent, for which Putin opted this time.
The commission found only 91 invalid signatures for Putin. In power for more than two decades, he announced in December that he would run for another term.
Following the wave of sympathy with which Nadezhdin’s bid was met, Russian propaganda outlets that had previously ignored him unleashed a virulent attack on the mild-mannered politician.
One of the most prominent propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, went as far as demanding an investigation into Nadezhdin for “betrayal of the motherland”.
A veteran in Russian politics and former ally of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015, Nadezhdin has not been given any real chance of success, especially as he has spoken out against the war in Ukraine. That stance has also brought him support from leading opposition figures — both in exile and in prison.
Long lines have formed of people waiting to sign for Nadezhdin’s bid. Because of the Kremlin’s strict ban on protests and displays of anti-war symbols, these have been the only unsanctioned public gatherings since the early days of the war.
Political analysts argue it is implausible that Nadezhdin’s campaign wasn’t approved by the Kremlin, at least in the early stages. In the past the Putin regime has allowed handpicked figures to run for president in order to convey legitimacy to the electoral process.
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