“Signatures submitted”, validated a member of the Electoral Commission. Boris Nadezhdine, the only opponent of the assault in Ukraine in the running for the Russian presidential election, submitted on Wednesday January 31 the signatures of support necessary to register his candidacy for the election scheduled for March 15 to 17.
Little known to the general public, this veteran of Russian political life, who advocates the "end" of the assault in Ukraine and denounces the authoritarian drift of Vladimir Putin, has aroused an unexpected enthusiasm in recent days, tens of thousands of Russians mobilizing to support his candidacy.
Read alsoPresidential election in Russia: Boris Nadejdine, the political UFO who challenges Putin
“Thank you very much to those who believed in us,” declared this ex-liberal MP to the press.
“Everything went well,” he stressed about the collection of signatures from more than 100,000 voters supporting him, the threshold necessary to see his candidacy validated by the authorities.
On Wednesday, he even handed over 105,000 to the Central Electoral Commission, Boris Nadejdine told the press.
Response within ten days
The Electoral Commission should for its part rule on the candidacy of Boris Nadejdine in the next ten days, knowing that there is, in addition to the number of signatures, a question of quota per administrative entity to be respected.
Several hundred Muscovites had lined up in recent days to sign in favor of Boris Nadezhdine, a legal means for them to demonstrate their direct opposition to the Kremlin's policies in a country where any dissident voice is severely repressed.
“We don’t consider him a competitor”
At 60 years old, however, the person concerned has few illusions about the result of the presidential election, as the re-election of Vladimir Putin, in power since 2000, seems obvious. “But I hope that March 17 will perhaps mark the end, the beginning of the end of the Putin era,” he confided in an interview a few days ago.
“My candidacy gives people a unique opportunity to legally protest against current policy,” said this former advisor to Boris Nemtsov, an opponent assassinated in 2015.
It is difficult to know how far this elected official from a town on the outskirts of Moscow can go, but the Kremlin in any case does not hide its disdain towards him: “We do not consider him as a competitor,” Dmitri recently said. Peskov, spokesperson for Vladimir Putin.
With AFP
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