Putin’s opponents are getting more and more support
Putin opponent Boris Nadezhdin could run in the presidential election in March – if the electoral commission lets him.
The presidential candidacy of declared war opponent Boris Nadezhdin in Russia has met with unexpectedly great interest. “We are currently collecting about 15,000 signatures a day,” Nadezhdin said in an interview broadcast on the YouTube channel Khodorkovsky Live on Tuesday.
Photos and videos on social networks showed long queues of citizens in various cities who wanted to help the opposition politician run for office with their signature. It is uncertain whether the Russian election commission will actually officially register him as a candidate. The election will take place on March 17th.
According to Nadezhdin‘s campaign website, his supporters had already collected more than 100,000 signatures by Tuesday morning. The Central Election Commission is demanding 105,000 to be collected in various regions by January 25th. No more than 2,500 supporter signatures are counted from one region.
Police disrupt signature collection
According to reports, Nadezhdin has already found significantly more supporters in the metropolises of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. But more and more videos of long queues are now being published from other regions. People in Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and Petrozavodsk filmed themselves queuing to support the liberal’s candidacy. Many Russians who fled abroad also signed Nadezhdin’s electoral list.
However, there are also reports of disruptions in the collection of signatures. The police in Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Obninsk briefly arrested the politician’s election workers.
Elections in Russia are accompanied by allegations of fraud and manipulation. In the past, the electoral commission has repeatedly refused to allow opposition politicians to run because the citizen signatures they collected were allegedly incorrect. In December, for example, the critic Yekaterina Duntsova was thrown out of the race before she was officially registered. It is clear to observers that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin will secure his fifth term in office in the spring.
