Opponent of the war and Putin, Nadezhdin submits his candidacy in the presidential race

2024-01-31 15:02:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Opponent of the war and Putin, Nadezhdin submits his candidacy in the

Russian opposition politician, Boris Nadezhdin

Russian opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin, who has openly called for an end to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, has submitted an application to Russia's Central Election Commission to register as a candidate for the March 17 presidential election.

Nadezhdin said on his official website on Wednesday that he has collected more than 110,000 signatures of support, above the threshold of 100,000 signatures needed to register as a candidate.

The Central Election Commission has 10 days to evaluate the signatures, whether they are genuine or not, and to decide whether Nadezhdin is allowed to run for president.

Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old born in Uzbekistan, is being backed by associations of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny and exiled opposition figures Maksim Kats and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, although the election is expected to be easily won by President Vladimir Putin. who has led Russia as president or prime minister since 1999.

Putin officially registered as a presidential candidate earlier this week for an election he is expected to win comfortably because his main opponents are either in prison or in exile, having fled for security reasons.

Elections in Russia are strongly controlled by the Kremlin and are neither free nor fair.

Who is Boris Nadezhdin?

Boris Nadezhdin, 60, is committed to an end to the war in Ukraine and an end to military mobilization, as well as dialogue with the West.

"People sign for me, not because they particularly like me, but because it's a chance to do something for peace, to end this whole story and stop killing people," Nadezhdin told Reuters news agency, on January 24.

Recently, Russian activists in Montenegro collected signatures for Nadezhda.

According to them, he is the only candidate who opposes Russia's war in Ukraine.

"This is a way of showing our stance against the war, supporting it," Olga Stepanova, who moved to Budva, Montenegro, after the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine, told RFE/RL on Tuesday. years ago.

So far, about 1,700 signatures have been collected for Nadezhdin in Montenegro.

One of the organizers, Illija Gurevi?, believes that the message being sent is more important than the number.

"All these people left their homes and came to Montenegro, because of the Russian regime and the war. Their message is that they want changes," Gurevich told Radio Free Europe and added that the Russians were gathering support for Nadezhdin in several other European countries as well./ REL