Thousands of people across Russia are signing petitions to support the longshot candidacy of Boris Nadezhdin.

Boris Nadezhdin has become a dilemma for the Kremlin as he seeks to run in the March 17 presidential election. The question now is whether Russian authorities will allow him on the ballot.

The stocky, bespectacled 60-year-old local legislator and academic has struck a chord with the public, openly calling for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine, the end of mobilizing Russian men for the military, and starting a dialogue with the West. He also has criticized the country’s repression of LGBTQ+ activism.

“The collection of signatures has gone unexpectedly well for us,” Nadezhdin told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Moscow. “We didn’t expect this, to be honest.”

  • theodewere
    64•10 months ago

    Even in the Far East city of Yakutsk, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, Nadezhdin’s team said up to 400 people a day braved temperatures that plunged to minus 40 Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) to sign petitions.

    this is pretty amazing, the guy’s party doesn’t even have seats in Parliament, and he might run against Putin

    Exiled opposition activist Maxim Katz said on YouTube that whatever the outcome, Nadezhdin’s candidacy shows “there is one thing we know right now: Conversations about civic apathy in Russia are very far from reality. What we have is not civic apathy but a civic famine — an enormous hidden potential.”

    that’s a great quote, i like this guy

      • theodewere
        -6•10 months ago

        there are cowards everywhere on the internet nowadays

    • Flying SquidMEnglish
      2•10 months ago

      Good thing Putin allows free and fair elections and never does anything really, really bad to people who try to run against him, isn’t it?

      • theodewere
        0•10 months ago

        all the snide comments about “business as usual in Russia” are old, and not funny… this situation is clearly different for a lot of reasons… i don’t know if Putin can do as much about this as he normally could…