Russian anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin says he is barred from election

Russian anti-war presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin says he has been banned from running against Vladimir Putin in the carefully managed presidential elections in March.

Earlier on Thursday the central election commission (CEC) said it had found “irregularities” in over 9,000 of more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.

That figure was three times higher than the allowable 5% error rate and provides grounds for the commission to disqualify Nadezhdin.

CEC’s deputy chair Nikolai Bulaev said last week it had found 11 “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.

Archive

Transporter_Room_3,
@Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website avatar

I wonder if he actually thought he had a chance.

Like, does anyone really think they have any sort of possibility of being elected?

Against someone who wouldn’t hesitate to bomb entire apartment complexes to try and pin it on an opponent? Or who doesn’t hesitate to outright have people black bagged?

LufyCZ,

It still undermines Putin a bit, think that’s what the goal is

noobdoomguy8658,

It is, partly. Nadezhdin has been part of the Russian politics for decades, authored and co-authored many laws and took part in many initiatives; him running for president is basically him exercising his passive right to be elected, but as he himself said, he’s been thinking about running for president since Summer 2023.

He’s been invited to the Russian propaganda TV shows numerous times as a liberal scapegoat of sorts - they’d just try to portray him and people like him (anti-war or anti-Putin or both, basically people who want freedom and peace for their own country and for everyone else), often failing, as there never was any clever way to make him shut up; the man knows many of Putin’s cronies because he’s been in politics for that long, and he’s very smart with what he’s saying because he knows what kind of narrative gets you assassinated or jailed.

From everything I’ve heard from him, Nadezhdin just wanted to act in the most influential way he saw for himself and for others, coincidentally being the safest one, too. He had hesitated at first, but quickly joined the race to get the signatures after Duntsova got turned down, and he really believes in change and progress and a brighter, non-violent future for Russia. It’s a good thing, too, because as we’ve seen times and times again, resorting to violence to deal with one regime in hopes of building a new, better system for each and for all is a sure way to attract and amass even more people who should never bear anywhere near any sort of power, and do so precisely in and around power, ultimately leading to greater terror.

To me, Nadezhdin seems like a pragmatic man who can believe, which is important, and he readily pursued the chance to become a candidate for the elections because of it, but also because he did speak, extensively, with the current Russian opposition (the ones that haven’t been murdered or jailed, at least) and cooperated with them (one would be more accurate to say that it was vise versa, actually, so props to them putting weight on the attempts and spreading the word, as well as assisting him during the process) under some shared understanding that, in times of great despair and misery and seemingly inescapable reign of darker, evil, greedy, murderous forces, when calling for peace and life is a crime, when people have been carefully manipulated into disunity and feeling small - it’s in these times that it’s important to do something to make people realize that they’re not alone, they’re not few, but that they’re many, that there’s something they can try and do to show the regime that they do not agree with it, nor do they want it.

Apart from this pursuit, very important and uplifting and very much needed by the Russian populace evident by the last several weeks, there is also an important factor of actually putting pressure on the regime - despite what many may believe, the current regime doesn’t completely ignore everything; very few regimes do or can, actually, but the Putin’s regime especially so, as we’ve seen time and time again through various displays and in various forms. Of course, it is far from perfect, but it’s not insignificant or minuscule for many reasons: it makes the regime move under pressure and uncertainty, which leads to rushed decisions, which leads to mistakes, which leads to opportunities… which is ultimately good for everyone, as without Putin and his regime, there is no war, for he’s the sole “benefactor”, if there’s anything of benefit left for him in this stupid mistake.

Last but not least, when the regime sees that some “irrelevant and small” candidate manages to gather an absurdly large and arbitrary number of signatures (try and find another country where you need to get 100,000 perfectly prepared signatures along with names and addresses and passport numbers before you can run for president), with lines of people popping all over the country despite what felt like its coldest days of the year (for larger parts, at least), then you know that there’s still a significant chunk of people that won’t be happy with, say, another broad mobilization or martial laws or anything like that - for every person who managed to go and leave their signature (along with some sensitive personal data), there’s who knows how many more people who felt too scared or simply couldn’t leave their signatures because there weren’t any collectors or posts near them (some had to travel 100+ km, some don’t have the opportunity, as Russia’s very, very big), and there’s even more people who probably could’ve signed if they had known about the whole thing if Nadezhdin had access to TV and radio to spread the word, as it should be during election such as these (in more democratic country). Nobody can say for certain what’s going to come out of these last several weeks, but Putin and his lapdogs surely have enough to consider now - and a lot of stress that, again, will ultimately help in turning things for the better.

ChunkMcHorkle, (edited )
@ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world avatar

deleted by creator

noobdoomguy8658,

You’re welcome and пожалуйста. I consider my English skills one of (if not the) most important assets of mine and try to use it to offer some perspective from within the anti-war/Putin population; I can’t say I’ve seen many other Russians doing the same in places I visit, so I try to be the voice when I can.

Sometime ago I considered making a blog for that kind of thing or something, but ultimately fell out of it as I doubt I’d keep it well enough to gain proper traction; and it’s much more work than writing comments and talking to people on a more personal level, which may divert a huge chunk of my attention, too, resulting in a clouded perspective.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • world@lemmy.world
  • fightinggames
  • All magazines
    •