Thousands of people across Russia are signing petitions to support the longshot candidacy of Boris Nadezhdin.

Boris Nadezhdin seeks to run in the March 17 presidential election in Russia. The question now is whether authorities will allow him on the ballot.

The stocky, bespectacled 60-year-old local legislator and academic has struck a chord with the public, openly calling for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine, the end of mobilizing Russian men for the military, and starting a dialogue with the West. He also has criticized the country’s repression of LGBTQ+ activism.

  • HipsterTenZero@dormi.zoneEnglish
    551·
    10 months ago

    Yeah there we go. I’ve never heard of this guy before, but the description doesn’t paint him to be just another a lesser evil at least. I hope this guy gains momentum.

  • Deceptichum@kbin.social
    553·
    10 months ago

    Does anyone believe they have non-rigged elections in Russia?

    It doesn’t matter how many people they let run, they’re never winning.

    • andrew_bidlawEnglish
      28·
      10 months ago

      I am a stupid russian man.

      I hope my support to him would at least be shown to the Putin guy, on printed papers how he likes it.

      I’ve donated and signed it for our powerholders to know that I hate them and strive for a change. I’m in doubt they’d change their ways after that, but that’s the most legal and safe way to show that I hate them. And I couldn’t’ve missed it.

      • noobdoomguy8658@feddit.deEnglish
        15·
        10 months ago

        Seconding this as another Russia, another singee for Nadezhdin.

        The most important aspect here is let people act and get out of rut of feeling powerless and alone, which is exactly what’s been cultivated by Putin and his regime for decades. A lot of people never do anything because they’ve learned to see it as pointless, both through propaganda and through other commenters’ apathy, which is often propaganda, too.

        First there was Duntsova with her signatures and candidature, then many protested in Bashkortostan, then mostly self-organised to find a cat that was thrown into the cold out of a train by the conductor/stewardess, now Nadezhdin with his signatures amidst the coldest time of the year, traditionally long Russian winter holidays and rush to get everything done - people are seizing any opportunity to show themselves and others that not everyone is a warmongering blood-thirsty maniac, and that’s a very good thing.

        Some have been very skeptical about Nadezhdin and the elections, but even if all that proves to be worthless and fruitless in the end, there’s still a much greater benefit in trying to do something, confirming that there’s many like-minded people around - and it’s much, much more helpful than any apathetic take saying that the Kremlin will deal with Nadezhdin in one way or another; sometimes it feels like people want Putin gone, but hush and shame any attempts to do so, except for the unrealistically idealistic ones like a brutal revolution.

        • andrew_bidlawEnglish
          5·
          10 months ago

          Cheers to you my dear countryperson and a signee.

          I’m not questioning his speeches (because talking about the faith of new regions is an easy way to get ten+ years in prison) but I’m still wondering why he’s accepted to collect signatures, donations. Last two or three years made me a paranoid doubting everything and speculating of conapiracies.

          Is it to let off steam for a politically active minority? Is it a project of Kremlin? Did mr. Guarant get tired of no competition at all? Is it an empirical survey of what people really think that isn’t forged by VCIOM? Did they found a way to make their oppression lists write themselves?

          I don’t know. But with all confusion and fear, I feel proud of myself I did that and talked about him with my friend group. And I’m proud of you too. And was very happy to see queues at my local post of people who, for whatever reason, wants this madness to stop.

          Anarchists, nazis, fooled workers, businesspersons, wifes of soldiers and even soldiers themselves (I probably saw one of them, can’t tell, camo is too popular these days) – I love to see everyone’s angry. Even the worst persons won’t disappear once the war is over, we would still be among them, even if we dislike the hell out of them. And at this point I would encourage and support literally anyone who’d say the war to fuck itself and stand by anyone who says it’s insanity. This learnt powerless that you’ve mentioned brings the bar that fucking low.

          • noobdoomguy8658@feddit.deEnglish
            7·
            10 months ago

            Couldn’t agree more. I, too, spoke with my friends, but in a very different way - I first sent one of them an invitation to come with and leave a signature for the man, giving a brief explanation of what we could achieve; I didn’t make a long or comprehensive speech, and my friend agreed, as did the other one, who was in a Discord call with the first one at the time. None of these two are particularly interested in politics, I doubt I could call them left-leaning or part of the current opposition in Russia, but the sheer ease and speed with which they just agreed to come with me and sign for Nadezhdin spoke volumes to me, even more so than the Prigozhin’s march.

            The most beautiful thing about it is the fact that the point we got to initially wouldn’t be open for another 30 minutes, and then we learned we had to go to a completely different one because it was the only one open due to all the strain on the volunteers and the entire campaign; there we learned that they were out of blanks for the regions two of us were signing for, so they asked us to print some somewhere nearby, which we did, and then signed off as planned. None of them protested, despite the fact that all three of us were already late for work that day. The only concern I heard came from the least liberal of my friends, which basically boiled down to them saying that they hope Nadezhdin, should he become the president, wouldn’t become another Putin. That, too, says a lot about the Kremlin gremlin.

            As to why Nadezhdin got so far… I think Maksim Katz put it best - the government is full of morons, is run by morons, and those morons seek to make other morons happy. It’s been over two decades of theft, murder, deliberate destruction of trust and unity and critical thinking, extreme bureaucracy, cleansing, lies, and wiping out autonomy - of course a system like that is prone to make mistakes, isn’t it? Especially when it’s stressed with so much stuff already, and even more so amidst the elections the prime candidate for which is definitely not in favor as evident by his joke of an announcement to run for presidency, complete lack of his face on any material advertising the elections, and now the fact that seemingly a much larger portion of the population is actually going to attend the elections, making any tampering more difficult and risky

            They’re just incompetent and they get high on their own stuff, possibly truly believing that everyone is in love with Putin and everything he brings, that the opposition is just a few 18-year students making irregular donations to some irrelevant politicians. I really hope they’re losing sleep and mental health more than ever now as their beliefs crumble and they get more and more irrational, increasing the potential for even more mistakes that we can take advantage of.

            Either that or it’s some secret anti-Putin plot from within, because everyone is tired of the old bastard at this point, regardless of their political or ideological views.

            As for the people whose views aren’t as humane… my answer is Realpolitik. You’re right, they’re not going anywhere, and that’s why we must learn to work with people we don’t like - so must they. We’re not going to build a healthy and safe society that in turn builds a healthy and safe county, both for its citizens and the rest of the world, if we ostracise people that aren’t 100% with our idea of good or fair or just: it’s a yet another path to tyranny, for who gets to decide, and more importantly, most people often turn to radical, inhumane views and parties when they have no true human contact or empathy in their lives. We’ll have to offer everyone a chance to become a part of a kind and supporting community, one that doesn’t punish you the moment you disagree or seem different, one that embraces and teaches, one that’s inviting and welcoming - that way, the radical, the violent, and the hating communities and parties and candidates and politicians will have progressively less and less to offer, losing their old populist tricks of pride and grandeur they promise to give back.

            I’m glad we’ve met over here, my friend. I wish I knew of more people like you in my country and places to meet them easily, but that’s a whole other story. Let’s talk more and network, if you don’t mind - I think we all need it right now.

            • andrew_bidlawEnglish
              2·
              10 months ago

              Yeah, we need each other just not to go insane.

              I dropped telegram and other spy networks, so I’m pretty open to other options.

              • noobdoomguy8658@feddit.deEnglish
                2·
                10 months ago

                Matrix? @noobdoomguy8658:matrix.org

                There’s also DMs on Lemmy if you prefer, and IRC, but I’m new to the latter.

                I kinda wish I could make everyone in my circles to get into Matrix and fediverse in general, maybe IRC, but that’s hardly a fun time for them - just another website, app, or service to learn and use just for one lefty dork, and not for a very frequent communication, too.

    • Axiochus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      Russian politics isn’t primarily about rigging the elections. That alone will create a dissatisfied populace, you don’t want this. You want complacency, fear, ignorance, apathy, patriotism, pragmatism. Ideally you want to maintain a strong authentic base that will preserve the status quo and keep you in power. Alternatives, in such a system, need to be destroyed, discredited, or assimilated, they can’t become a loudspeaker for growing dissatisfaction with the status quo.

      • Deceptichum@kbin.social
        7·
        10 months ago

        And yet every election there is widespread fraud.

        Didn’t we even watch them on CCTV last time doing it or was that the time before? It gets hard to remember when, when there so much of it.

        • Axiochus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          10 months ago

          Yup, there is. And it’s not a democratic system. But the point is that, even to the autocratic cannibals that are currently in power, it matters to keep a sizeable chunk of the population just content enough to be a majority supporter of the status quo. Thus, elections matter. They are a way to gauge the stability of the system. I have no doubt that, prior to the elections, the party will expend a lot of its resources to placate, inspire, threaten, confuse the population in its favor. Stuff like further mobilisations and austerity measures will come after the elections.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
      91·
      10 months ago

      It’s actually very hard to override people’s votes. Countries like this usually take unused votes and put them in the government’s candidate AFAIK. There’s nothing they can do if he actually makes it on the ballot and, say, all of Russia votes for him. Which is why anyone with a risk of something like that happening is executed by suicide.

      • noobdoomguy8658@feddit.deEnglish
        5·
        10 months ago

        The latter isn’t always the case, but the rest is very accurate. I try to use my skills in English to offer people outside Russia some insights, both to help them understand this place a little more and help myself cope with everything a little better, but your post is precise and concise, which is best for this kind of case; I just can’t stop talking and end up writing confusing and complicated paragraphs because ei get emotional and try to put too many things into a single comment.

        So good job and thank you!

  • JJROKCZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    10 months ago

    I’m not going to take the easy route and make window or tea jokes like every other time Russians are mentioned on this site…

    I hope he gets on the ballet and at least gets the populace to consider an alternative. He needs to be kept under constant guard and be very careful the rest of his days for openly opposing the oligarchs or they’ll end his campaign.

    I don’t think his odds are good, but i hope one day we’ll see a world with a truly democratic russia sitting at the table and truly wanting peace

    • Syndic@feddit.deEnglish
      17·
      10 months ago

      Even if he ends up on the ballot, there’s no way in hell that he will get fair elections and does have any chance of ousting Putin. Putin has killed a lot of Russians to get into the positions he’s currently in to give it up now.

  • admiralteal@kbin.social
    341·
    10 months ago

    Places your bets, which is it:

    • He isn’t a credible ‘threat’ to Putin, and the state media is letting him get away with some visibility so that he can be crushed in the definitely-not-completely-fake polls in order to preserve the democracy kayfabe. Possibly to achieve a domestic policy goal like getting out of the Ukraine war without losing as much face for Putin.

    • He is a credible threat and will be dealt with brutally and violently.

    • He is a sockpuppet. Either of Putin or the next generation of Russian leaders who, in proud Soviet tradition, are going to honor and glorify Putin in his retirement then quietly delete and replace his history and influence with their own.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.caEnglish
      121·
      10 months ago

      This is controlled opposition and it’s critical for the Putin regime.

      Controlled opposition doesn’t require direct collusion, but it doesn’t preclude it either. It just means he’s useful for Putin maintaining democratic legitimacy or even just the illusion of it.

      Regardless, if he was an actual threat to Putin, he wouldn’t be allowed to remain in any elected office.

      I’m fairly confident in this assessment. However, if he’s found in motel with a dead hooker and a live boy, or falls out a window, feel free to call me out and rub my noise in it.

    • Flughoernchen@feddit.deEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      I bet on the first option. It’s maybe a way of convincing the people that all those topics were opinions of the minority. The protests and therefore resistance might quiet down if enough people think that the average citizen would support the war and Putin in general.

  • MrMakabar@feddit.deEnglish
    221·
    10 months ago

    If somebody like him actually runs, it will only happen to gauge public support for peace. He is never going to win, but if he should have won Putin might try to go for a peace deal in Ukraine.

  • vlad@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    Not really unlikely. He’s been trying to get on the ballot for years. There’s a lot of stuff like this that never makes it on the English speaking Internet. I’m also surprised that he is still alive, but I wish him all the luck in the world

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    10 months ago

    Boris Nadezhdin is a hero. I am deeply saddened by what is about to happen to him.

    Conservative governments do not tolerate challengers.

  • no banana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    10 months ago

    This man is controlled opposition, but it might be controlled opposition that has gone a bit too far for the Kremlin. We’ll see.

  • SitD@feddit.deEnglish
    8·
    10 months ago

    I’m hopeless about this situation either way. i wish the Russian government would once more become a beacon of technology and stand in its own feet instead of trying to find a future in invading other countries. the current path is a path into the medieval times and the result is not wealth. I’m not even pro capitalism, but this is plain unintelligent and wasteful.

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago

    A tiny candle in the dark, but it may be blown out any time by the storm that is ravaging this country right now.