Russia finds ‘errors’ in paperwork of candidate hoping to stand against Putin
Russia’s elections commission has said it found “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Boris Nadezhdin, the sole anti-war candidate in next month’s presidential election, in a sign that he could be disqualified from a carefully managed ballot meant to deliver victory for Vladimir Putin.
Nadezhdin, a veteran politician who has associated with Kremlin insiders and the opposition to Putin, has been waging a last-minute campaign to get on the ballot for the election, with thousands of Russians standing for hours in the freezing cold to add their signature in his support.
While Nadezhdin has not yet been disqualified, Friday’s briefing at the central elections commission indicated that he could be removed in the run-up to the vote. He has been summoned to the commission on Monday for a review of the “errors” among his signatures.
"you have error in documents"
"What would that be?"
"In field 'name' is not 'Vladimir Putin'. Grave error in documents, we cannot accept"
“There’s dead man’s signatures on this paper”
“What do you mean? They’re all standing right here in front of you”
bang bang bang
“See? Three dead man’s signatures”
I was seriously wondering how many conscripts might have signed before getting killed in Ukraine.
Wouldn't it be strange to require 100,000 signatures and stop exactly at that number? I feel like they're just buying time with this tactic.
He needs 100k signatures, but can file only 105k signatures.
How convenient.
what's even more convenient is they submitted them on the 48th floor... where the windows are well tended and open easily.
Quelle surprise!
Welp I guess there goes another window. Also, I would like to mention that the same game plan is being used by Putin as Cheeto Mussolini was trying to do.
2 peas blah blah blah. You get it.
Doing this to the puppet “opponent” that they themselves came up with, to create an illusion that he’s a real candidate… So messed up, they’re laughing in people’s faces
The puppet opponent that's openly against the war?
Yes. Real opponents that are against the war are either imprisoned or abroad. He might be getting out of control, but not for long.
It’s a commonly known fact. I was surprised that people here didn’t know.
Also he is only one that said he wants to win. Nobody else said that.
this will not be a surprise for Nadezhdin and his team.. i'm sure they have been expecting this fight from the beginning, although they didn't expect to have as much support behind them going into it..
There was never going to be any fight and there was never going to be an election with more than one person on the ballot.
It's illegal to say anything bad about the government, the military or Putin. Anything you say against them could be construed as misinformation, which is also illegal.
Any other candidates would need to be approved by the Kremlin so they could at least campaign. Oh, did I say the Kremlin? I meant Putin.
Obviously Putin is going to get 105% of the votes. There's no winning if you're not Putin.
But this is still quite a disaster for Putin as the collected votes are the closest thing to citizens expressing their real opinion on Putin.
That's why they are trying to present the signatures as illegitimate. It's not that they are afraid of losing elections to the opposition. It's the fact that the opposition got such a support that is problem.
But if there will be popular candidate Belarus can happen.
It wouldn't get as far as Belarus IMO. Belarusian people don't have such a slave mindset. They are not free, but they are also willing to fight somewhat for their rights.
But still, popular candidate would be a problem in russia.
thank you for giving us the point of view of fear and defeat.. everyone, this guy's post is what fear looks like.. it's what it looks like to be defeated before you even try..
Nadezhdin hasn't stopped yet
That's not fear… that's just looking at the situation in a dictatorship. Even if Nadezhdin would be on the ballot (and win), Putin would win according to the official results with a huge majority.
yeah, that internalized fear and defeatism is why dictatorships persist
Describing things how they are is not fear. That'd be not describing them at all.
Nadezhdin understands how things are, yet he is still going.. the people who signed petitions understand how things are, yet they went out and signed their names to it.. it's just my opinion..
Meanwhile Lukashenko: I've got 80%!
Belarusians: Sasha 3%
Lukashenko: Putin, help me!
It's not fear. I am simply pointing out an illusion.
you can't overcome a fear that you don't acknowledge
Sure, your statement is true. However, it is out of context and irrelevant to the point.
The illusion is democracy and that the people are in control of their government. To make sure any election looks "fair", you need a little bit of drama. Putin must have an opponent for this illusion to work.
This has little to do with fear. If anything, it's reducing fear in the populus by saying: "See! We are a democracy. The people still get to have their elections and here is an opponent to prove it." The people are placated and life goes on. I have some fairly interesting theories about why the election is even allowed, but this is not the place for that speculation.
(Didn't Putin do a little prime minister shuffle a couple of years ago? The person who was temporarily president is proving to be just as toxic and is also calling for nuking the world, I believe.)
Either the opponent gracefully loses, he gets thrown out of a window or gets a long vacation to some random corner of Siberia.
If anything, it's the illusion of hope that is more destructive than fear, in this case.
fear dances around and talks a lot about illusions
You use so many words to say absolutely nothing.
maybe you need a hug
There you go again! Fewer words this time I guess, so we’ll call that an improvement.
show a little sympathy and see what it gets you, nothing but snark
Aww at least be honest with me, I thought we had something special :(
I am being serious and request you do the same.
Analogies are akin to a defense mechanism, so it's not helping your case.
Edit: I will note that Russian analogies and proverbs are some of the best in the world.
you go ahead and imagine that you are the serious one.. you are obviously not one of the people who were willing to go out and sign a petition with Nadezhdin's name on it..
Yes.
I don't think so. Compared to Navalny 6 years ago he is not prepared at all.
Seems so
A minor correction: His guys brought the max of 105 000 (from 200k+) signatures and the margin of error is set to 5%. Izbirkom spoke about two candidates at that time when they summoned them. Earlier a state official incorrectly stated that the ballot of 5 signatures can't be brought with just one. Also, Izbirkom is said to use LLM to detect fake signatures lmao.
Yet, they can make up everything and has all tools to do so. I'm just curious what would they pick. And a brief wind of hope they wouldn't be able to, just for the sake of legitimization since that guy in the world news.
Yeah let's start with a fact that 105000 signatures limit sucks so bad :D
And 2,5k limit per subject of Russian Federation meaning you need loads of money to collect them in every region or republic. This garden is walled just like a Gulag. It's surprising he got them with all these barriers.
What also makes me wonder is that Putin has a thing for running independent meaning he needs 300k. And there were many photoes of his signing posts remaining vacant. Still, no doubt he'd get there.
Nah I even believe Putin can genuinely get 300.000 signatures. Unlike other candidates, he's already known to everyone in Russia (meaning 0,2% active support is enough), and sure as hell the signatures will be accepted.
What he means is if Putin got 300k signatures there would be much longer lines to sign for Putin than for Nadezhdin. But there wen't any.
There were way more points installed to vote for Putin than for Nadezhdin (the latter literally has one point for entire Saint Petersburg afaik). I've seen people signing for Putin, didn't count the numbers, though.
Won't doubt or argue, since I can't tell your lie from your truth on the internet. My observations were different. But in the end it doesn't matter.
Because Putin has all his state workers and clients to vote. Schools, prisons, psych wards, police, municipal bodies. There's something like 3-5kk of cops, rosgvardia, siloviky. Even if no one would visit public bins, they'd make the bank.
My amusement is caused by his relentless want to run as an independent and get this 300k. I think he has some thing for feeling he's supported by his loyal people and measures the work of his governors by who brings more to the table.
Sure budget workers would be pressed to leave those if there would not be enough, and Putin's gonna get his way anyway.
I think running this way makes his power appear more legitimate to some people, which is why he does this. Just one more minor point in his hold on power that doesn't cost him much.
I wonder if he himself want it.
Appearing legitimate is crucial for any dictator, so why not. Or do you mean if he wants to hold on for power any further? Then he doesn't have much of a choice - either lead or be held responsible for all of the caused atrocities.
What an earth do these people think is going on? Does he think Russia is an actual democracy and that he stands even a remote chance of not only winning, but being allowed on the ballot?
If this guy actually turns up to this meeting on Monday there's a 95% probability he's going to be dead by the end of the day. I hope he knows that.
If you give up you'll never achieve anything. This guy is a hero. He puts himself in danger just to show that there's still people out there willing to stand against Putin. It gives the Kremlin a headache because they have to come up with some bullshit reason again to ban him from participating. It reminds all the Russians how their system is not a real democracy. He doesn't stand a chance to actually win, but it still communicates to everyone that there's plenty of people in Russia who support change.
Yeah I think this is the most likely explanation, like surely he knows he can’t win but he is a symbol that there is still opposition to Putin.
And if he dies he's a martyr. Usually takes an event like that to knock the dominoes.
I fully believe he is a Kremlin plant made specifically to encourage citizens with dissident opinions to step into the open.
He didn't expect any support. His target audience was Moscow Oblast(separate region from Moscow the federal city), mostly educated citizens, mostly from MIPT.
I don't think he'll be dead, rather the Kremlin's actions regarding him suggest they see him as useful. Nadezhdin gets a lot of help from Russian state-sponsored media in getting his name out there. And while he is seemingly willing to criticize Putin and even score some rhetorical hits, he's also an official politician who can probably be controlled if necessary. I'm not sure whether he's a witting part of it or not, but I think Putin wants to keep him around to manage the opposition. The legit opposition may also realize this but may support him anyway because they have no other hope.
If I ever ran opposed to Putin, I would never leave the ground floor. Can fall out of a window that’s 5 feet off the ground. Stairs just wouldn’t exist in my world.
Let me introduce you to "basements"
I'd also avoid any kind of tea. Tea in Russia has been known to come with a complementary side dish of plutonium
That’s England.
"Dead souls"... were they dead before patinas investigators identified them?
Usually the errors Putin's opponents have, is falling off tall buildings.
How kind of them. They're trying to save him from mysteriously falling out of a window.
This is interesting.
It's widely assumed that Putin has various measures to ensure he'll win no matter who runs against him.
This could be an indication that he's unpopular enough that even these measures won't be enough to ensure he'll win.
Same happened 6 years ago.
Also there was poll last year what maximum age should be for presidency. 60% are against 70 years or older president. Bunker Rat is 71.
I'm sure there were videos a few years back of goons openly shoving piles of paper into the ballot boxes.
Like, not even smart enough to do it off camera. Didn't matter anyway. Nobody is going to do anything about it.
Until the majority of voters who lived through ‘91 to ‘00 die off, he’s fine.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nadezhdin, a veteran politician who has associated with Kremlin insiders and the opposition to Putin, has been waging a last-minute campaign to get on the ballot for the election, with thousands of Russians standing for hours in the freezing cold to add their signature in his support.
Nadezhdin previously served as an aide to Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s domestic politics chief, and his deep contacts in government are controversial.
Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the political analysis firm R.Politik, said Nadezhdin had probably been permitted to try – and fail – to collect signatures for the elections to “show the hopelessness of the anti-war agenda”.
But since then, she said, Nadezhdin’s support from the camp of the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his meeting with angry wives of soldiers fighting in Ukraine and his attempts at outreach to anti-war Russians who have fled abroad had made his candidacy politically embarrassing for the Kremlin.
Nadezhdin said in his elections manifesto that Putin had made a “fatal mistake by starting the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s preferred term for its invasion.
Another openly anti-war candidate, Yekaterina Duntsova, has already been disqualified by the elections commission, which refused to accept her nomination because of alleged errors in her paperwork, including spelling mistakes.
The original article contains 532 words, the summary contains 208 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I imagine the issue was with his Death Certificate it was filed, but the state sponsored hitman is taking his time.
Well it can take time for polonium to kill someone.
Oh that must be the %7 of the %107 vote turnout that Putin got from one of the precincts in Grozny
The number of votes they cast is simply a reflection of how firmly they believe in his policies.
Nobody buys this, right? Putin's people will find any error they decide they need to find
Damn, yeah that happens sometimes that you send in some wrong papers.
Navalny 2018 all over again. Who could have guess that Putin fears anyone younger than him.
He fears anyohter other than him.
Always use Linux to file paperwork in Russia.
Windows will be the death of you over there.
At least he tried. Hopefully they dont kill him for that.
Didn't Trump try the same tactic? So do we have a " Student /Master " debate? BC Putin is pretty dumb as well. His people are just better at making others prove gravity is real.
A similar, funny thing is going on for ages in TR. Turkish environmentalists who only seems to care about environment and not so extreme leftism can't set up "Green Party" while the most vote they could get would be around 0.001%
I don't think they will like my vote prediction, but I really know this geography where people root for cheaper diesel prices.