People in Russia lined up for war opponent Boris Nadezhdin’s signature campaign. The authorities still speak of “counterfeits”.
The Russian election commission has questioned the authenticity of the signatures for the war-critical presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin. “We see dozens and dozens of people who are no longer alive but have given their signature – and that raises the question of the honesty and ethical norms of the signature collectors, for example,” said the deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Nikolai Bulayev according to state news agency Tass. He suggested that Nadezhdin might be involved in forgeries.
The accused defended himself against the allegations. There are no “dead souls” in his signature lists, he wrote on his Telegram channel, based on the novel of the same name by the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. In fact, Nadezhdin was the only candidate for whom Russians publicly lined up to sign for him and his candidacy. According to his own statements, his team collected twice the required 100,000 signatures.
Nadezhdin could be taken out of the race
The matter has not yet been decided. Bulayev suggested inviting Nadezhdin and another candidate from a communist splinter party to the election commission on Monday to “show them the results of the checks and present the protocols with the complaints.” Political observers give Nadezhdin’s candidacy little chance. They assume that the electoral commission will use a pretext to remove the old liberal from the race because of his criticism of the war.
Incumbent Vladimir Putin wants to be re-elected for the fifth time in the presidential election in March – and had the Russian constitution rewritten specifically for this purpose in 2020. The Kremlin does not need a large audience for an explicit opponent of its war of aggression.