(Moscow) Rare images: hundreds of Muscovites queuing to support a former liberal MP who is collecting signatures to become the “peace” candidate and against Vladimir Putin in the presidential election on March 15-17.
Since Saturday, despite freezing cold, thousands of Russians have been waiting to sign their initials in support of Boris Nadejdine, who is largely unknown to the general public.
One after the other, they enter the electoral headquarters whose entrance is stamped with the words: “Push open the door to the future”.
If they are there, it is because the former elected official, who has worked in the liberal opposition but also in movements more in line with the authorities, says he is opposed to the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
So far, Boris Nadezhdine, who had connections within the regime, has not been targeted by the repression which has nevertheless decimated Russian civil society since the mass entry of Moscow troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
“Without fear of arrest”
PHOTO EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA, REUTERS
Boris Nadezhdine
Again on Sunday, during a debate on YouTube with the Russian journalist, now exiled, Yulia Latynina, he reaffirmed being for peace and wanting to put an end to the mobilization if he is elected.
In recent months, he had proclaimed that Russia must “elect a new president” and called the intervention in Ukraine “a fatal mistake” by Vladimir Putin.
To compete in the presidential election, he must first collect 100,000 voter signatures by January 31. Its site claimed to have gathered nearly 85,000 as of Monday evening.
His positions are an exception in Russia, where almost all of the figures opposed to the assault on Ukraine have fled the country or been imprisoned. Just like thousands of anonymous people elsewhere.
The other presidential candidates are careful not to express the slightest criticism of the Russian offensive and of Mr. Putin.
In the queue of signatories, a 19-year-old biotechnology student, Ivan Semionov, says he came to support Mr. Nadejdine because he was “moved by these astonishing images broadcast this weekend on social networks, showing so many people coming ( support him “.
“For many people it is the possibility of expressing their disagreement with what is happening, without fear of being arrested or sacked,” explains the young man.
Originally from Omsk, in western Siberia, nurse Natalia Avdeeva, passing through Moscow, rushed to the opponent’s electoral office. She is “pleasantly surprised” to see such a crowd.
“We are all united here to support a candidate opposed to the special operation,” said the 53-year-old woman, using the euphemism required to talk about the conflict.
” Hope ”
A liberal deputy in the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, in the early 2000s, Boris Nadejdine was close to the opponent Boris Nemtsov, assassinated in 2015. In recent years, he had become closer to political groups closer to the Kremlin , without completely following the line.
Vladimir Putin, in power for almost a quarter of a century, should nevertheless be re-elected once again to the Kremlin in mid-March.
However, it is with enthusiasm that hundreds of anonymous people line up in front of Mr. Nadejdine’s office.
Some note that even the candidate’s last name inspires them, its root being the same as the word “nadejda”, “hope” in Russian.
Andrei Vanioukov, a 52-year-old entrepreneur from Syktyvkar, in the Russian Far North, knows that the outgoing president will stay in place, but he wants to “support anyone as long as they are against” Putin.
“Even if Nadejdine has no chance of winning the election […]for people who have never gone out to protest in the streets for fear of repression, it is finally an opportunity to express themselves,” he says.
Valéry Bredikhine, a 36-year-old psychologist, confirms: he is content with this “possibility of expressing himself without the risk of being put in prison or beaten up”.
Ksenia Goloubtsova says she wants “especially change!” “. “I want my two sons, who are each four years old, to live in a more open, freer country.”