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”
Was the error that he filed the paperwork to run as president?
Nah, he failed to fall out of a window.
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.
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.
