Boris Nadejdine, the political UFO who challenges Putin

It was bitterly cold that day in Yakutsk, Siberia. The thermometer had fallen to -34°C on Sunday January 21, which did not prevent dozens of people waiting in line to sign. They came to support Boris Nadezhdine, an unlikely opposition candidate to Vladimir Putin in the Russian presidential election next March.

Similar scenes were filmed and posted on social networks in front of Boris Nadejdine’s campaign offices in Saint PETERSBOURGKrasnodar, Yekaterinburg or even Moscow. “There are thousands throughout the country coming to bring their signature to Boris Nadejdine,” noted the Moscow Times. “Pro-Nadejdine queues have also formed in front of Russian embassies in Israel, Serbia, Croatia and other countries where there is a Russian diaspora,” specifies Will Kingston-Cox, Russia specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona.

Objective 150,000 signatures

Signatures that this representative of the center-right Civil Initiative party needs. Indeed, one of the first obstacles on the path to the Kremlin for any candidate who does not belong to a party represented in the Duma is to gather 100,000 supports to then submit to the electoral commission.

Boris Nadejdine’s campaign managers claimed, Tuesday January 23, to have succeeded in gathering the famous signatures… but would prefer to collect 150,000. You never know: “the commission holds significant power and a certain margin of maneuver to decide on the validity of an application,” says Stephen Hall, Russia specialist at the University of Bath.

This candidate, whose political platform consists of taking the opposite view from Vladimir Putin on everything, thus prefers to take precautions with an body accused in the past of being a tool to get rid of opponents who are cumbersome for the Kremlin. Because Boris Nadejdine is not content with criticizing the war. He described the anti-LGBT law as a “return to the Middle Ages”, spoke out for a relaxation of the rules on abortion and criticized the Sino-Russian rapprochement initiated by Vladimir Putin, while advocating a strengthening of ties with Western Europe.

Positions which have earned him the support of opponents of the leading Russian president. The anti-corruption collective founded by Alexeï Navalny, the fierce critic of Russian power currently in prison, is in favor of him. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the anti-Putin billionaire in exile, also spoke in his favor. Just like Ekaterina Dountsova, journalist and opponent of Vladimir Putin, who has just seen her own candidacy for the presidential election rejected for “formal defects” by the electoral commission.

The Kremlin in action?

What should Vladimir Putin be concerned about? Not necessarily, and Dmitri Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, declared on Wednesday January 24: this candidate “does not scare us”. Some of the opponents of the master of the Kremlin also find the new champion of their cause too perfect to be honest. They are surprised that he was able to express himself so freely to criticize Vladimir Putin without being disturbed. “Half of my friends refuse to provide their signature to a candidate they describe as a Kremlin puppet,” says Pavel Sychev, a member of Boris Nadezhdine’s campaign committee, interviewed by the Moscow Times.

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This is a recurring problem in Russia, where the political landscape is locked by Vladimir Putin. As soon as an opponent rears his head, especially during an election period, he is suspected of being secretly in the pay of the Kremlin. There is even a specific term for the main so-called opposition parties, such as the communists and the ultranationalists of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia: it is the “systemic” opposition. These are groups which oppose Vladimir Putin in form, but support him in substance.

“In Russia, we always wonder who is the benefactor or protector of a candidate, and in the case of Boris Nadezhdine, it is not clear. He seems more or less to have come out of nowhere,” underlines Stephen Hall.

This sixty-year-old is not new to politics, however. In the early 2000s, he was a Duma deputy. He was also an advisor to Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian Prime Minister and famous opponent assassinated in 2015. But since Vladimir Putin came to power, Boris Nadezhdine has been vegetating in a local assembly in the Moscow region. This is not the political trajectory of a political heavyweight.

Skeptics, however, have noted some biographical details that upset them. He was notably an election observer for Vladimir Putin during the 2012 presidential election. Above all, “he was close to Sergei Kirienko, a political advisor to Vladimir Putin, renowned for being a fine electoral strategist”, notes Stephen Hall.

For this expert, this past proximity could suggest that Boris Nadezhdine’s candidacy was shaped “to obtain a realistic picture of the popularity of liberal and anti-war ideas in Russia, because opinion polls are not the most reliable indicators reliable”.

Too many disabilities?

Others prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to Boris Nadejdine. First, “because his political career does not give the impression that he is someone who benefited from the system put in place by Vladimir Putin,” notes Jeff Hawn, Russia specialist at the London School of Economics. .

Then, he did not improvise as an opponent of Vladimir Putin on the eve of the presidential election. “He started criticizing him in 2020,” underlines Will Kingston-Cox. At the time, he opposed the very important constitutional reform which allowed the president to stay in power beyond two consecutive terms. “And since 2022, he has been a fierce critic of the war in Ukraine, comparing in particular the great Russian offensive to an act of colonialism,” continues the ITSS Verona expert.

Finally, despite his prestigious support and his positions, Boris Nadejdine has “too many handicaps to represent a real danger for the regime”, believes Jeff Hawn. This politician “embodies all the values ​​defended by the men in power in Russia in the 1990s, and he is the heir of this generation largely discredited in the eyes of a majority of the Russian population,” summarizes Jeff Hawn. For him, he is a candidate who will please the intelligentsia of big cities and the diaspora, but ordinary Russians have very bad memories of the forced economic reforms of the 1990s.

This remote-controlled candidacy – or not – therefore represents a boon for Vladimir Putin. The electoral risk is almost zero for him, and the presence of Boris Nadejdine gives the impression that the opposition to the war has a voice in this election. He is therefore perhaps a very independent candidate, but one whom someone in Vladimir Putin’s entourage, like Sergei Kirienko, kindly encouraged to run… nothing more.

What those in power had perhaps not anticipated were all the Russians lining up, despite the cold and the risk of supporting an anti-war candidate, to provide their signature. “This is probably the most important thing about this candidacy, because these are clear and unusual manifestations of political discontent among the population,” said Will Kingston-Cox.

As it currently stands, it is not a danger for those in power because “these are more acts of civil disobedience [manifester son opposition à la guerre est interdit, NDLR] only real disturbances to public order”, summarizes Will Kingston-Cox.