Russia bars anti-war candidate from running against Vladimir Putin

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Russian anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin will not be allowed to run in next month’s presidential election, the Central Election Commission has ruled, dealing a blow to disillusioned voters keen to show their opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s government.

Nadezhdin, who opposes Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said he had gathered more than 200,000 signatures in support of his candidacy. However, the commission ruled on Thursday that more than 9,000 of the 60,000 it reviewed were invalid, thereby barring Nadezhdin from running in the March poll.

In a statement on Telegram on Thursday, Nadezhdin said he had sent objections to the commission and planned to appeal against the decision at Russia’s Supreme Court.

The only anti-war candidate slated to run against Putin in next month’s presidential election, Nadezhdin’s bid had galvanised thousands of frustrated Russians who rallied in January to support his candidacy, despite low expectations that the commission would permit him to run.

“We conducted the collection openly and honestly — the whole world watched the queues at our headquarters and collection points,” Nadezhdin wrote on Telegram. “Running for president in 2024 is the most important political decision of my life. I will not back down from my intentions.”

While the Kremlin has long permitted a selected group of so-called opposition candidates to run against Putin, as a means to maintain the perception of a free and fair election, it has taken a much more strident approach with candidates it believes to be a threat to the regime — such as the now-jailed Alexei Navalny.

Some sceptics believed that Nadezhdin was part of the first camp, running a Kremlin-sanctioned campaign meant to distract the anti-Putin opposition.

Nadezhdin has denied these accusations throughout his campaign. A one-time associate of Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader and Putin critic who was assassinated in 2015 outside the Kremlin, the former deputy in the Duma or legislative assembly was largely unknown until January when Russia’s disparate opposition leaders united around his candidacy.

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As part of his campaign platform, the veteran politician vowed to begin negotiating a ceasefire with Kyiv from his first day in office and end Russia’s military mobilisation. In his campaign manifesto, he alleged that Putin was “dragging Russia into the past” and criticised Russia’s recent anti-abortion stance and anti-LGBT laws as a return to “the Middle Ages”.

While Nadezhdin faces little recourse in Russia’s Supreme Court, on Telegram he told his supporters not to stand down and remember what his campaign — whatever its fate — had accomplished.

“I ask you not to give up,” he wrote. “Something happened that many could not believe: citizens sensed the possibility of change in Russia.”