In a rare sight, hundreds of Muscovites are queuing to support a former liberal lawmaker who is gathering signatures to become a “peaceful” candidate against Vladimir Putin in the March 15-17 presidential election, AFP reports.

Since Saturday, despite the severe frost, thousands of Russians have been waiting to sign in support of Boris Nadezhdin, who is little known to the general public.

One by one, they enter the election commission, at the entrance of which is written: “Open the door to the future.”

The reason for his stay is that the former deputy, who comes from the liberal opposition, as well as from movements closer to the government, opposes the Russian offensive against Ukraine.

So far, Boris Nadezhdin, who had connections within the regime, managed to avoid the repression that destroyed Russian civil society after Moscow’s troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“Without fear of arrest”

Also on Sunday, during a YouTube debate with exiled Russian journalist Yulia Latynina, he reiterated his support for peace and his desire to end the mobilization if it was won.

In recent months, he has declared that Russia must “elect a new president” and called the intervention in Ukraine a “fatal mistake” by Vladimir Putin.

To run for president, he must first collect 100,000 voter signatures by January 31. Its website claimed nearly 85,000 had been collected by Monday evening.

His position is an exception for Russia, where almost all opponents of the attack on Ukraine fled the country or went to prison. Like thousands of anonymous supporters.

The other presidential candidates do not express any criticism of the Russian offensive and Putin.

Among the signatories, 19-year-old biotechnology student Ivan Semenov said he came to support Nadezhdin because he was “touched by the amazing images posted on social media over the weekend showing how many people came to (support) him.”

“For many people, this is an opportunity to express their disagreement with what is happening without fear of being arrested or fired,” the boy explained.

Natalia Avdeeva, a nurse from Omsk in Western Siberia, was in Moscow when she rushed to the election office of an opposition politician. She was “pleasantly surprised” to see such a large crowd.

“We are all here in solidarity to support a candidate who opposes the special operation,” says the 53-year-old, using a euphemism for austerity to refer to the conflict.

“Hope”

A liberal deputy in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, in the early 2000s, Boris Nadezhdin was close to the opposition of Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015. In recent years, he has become close to political groups that gravitate around the Kremlin. , although he does not adhere to its entire line.

Vladimir Putin, who has been in power for almost a quarter of a century, is expected to be re-elected to the Kremlin in mid-March.

However, hundreds of anonymous people are impatiently lining up in front of Nadezhdin’s office.

Some note that they are inspired even by the name of the candidate, the root of which coincides with the Russian word “hope”, “nadiya”.

Andriy Vanyukov, a 52-year-old businessman from Syktyvkar in the far north of Russia, knows that the current president will remain in office, but is ready to “support anyone if he is against” Putin.

“Even if Nadezhdin has no chance of winning the elections (…), for people who have never taken to the streets to protest for fear of repression, this is finally an opportunity to speak,” he says.

Valery Bredikin, a 36-year-old psychologist, agrees with him: he is happy to “have the opportunity to express himself without the risk of being imprisoned or beaten.”

Ksenia Golubtsova, for her part, says that she wants “change above all else.” “I want my two sons, each four years old, to live in a more open and free country.” (AFP report)