Najriddin is the only candidate who consistently advocates for an anti-war stance. He advocated that Russia should immediately stop its military operations and start peace talks with Ukraine. He also promised that, if elected, he would end military mobilization, allow Russian soldiers to return home, and release all political prisoners. In large cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, people lined up to sign in support of Nadezhdin.
According to the report, Putin in Russia has entered the election as an independent candidate, which means that he does not have the support of any political party. However, it is generally clear that Putin will win this election by an absolute margin.
Despite the fact that Putin is dominant in this ** election, this does not mean that he is the only candidate. Currently, 11 candidates are registered to run, but most tend to support the Kremlin's policies, so they are not very competitive. Only Nadezhdin, a representative of the Russian opposition, is able to become Putin's main rival.
Nadezhddin is 60 years old, he began his political career in the 90s of the 20th century and served as a people's deputy of the Moscow region. He was also elected to the Federal State Duma in 1999 and served as an adviser to the leader of the opposition and to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Nemtsov.
Najriddin is currently the only candidate who has adhered to an anti-war stance, advocating an immediate ceasefire and negotiations with Ukraine. He also promised that, if elected, he would end military mobilization, allow Russian soldiers to return to their homes, and release political prisoners. In addition, he strongly opposed Russia's policy of expanding abortion restrictions and banning homosexual movements, likening it to a "medieval" approach, thus winning many supporters.
Despite Najriddin's strong desire to become a candidate, achieving this goal will not be easy. According to Russia's electoral law, there are two ways for a candidate to enter the final stage of the ** election: one is to be recommended by the top five parties in the State Duma parliament; The other is to submit an application as an individual.
Since Najriddin's Citizens' Initiative Party is not among the top five parties in parliament, he has no choice but to apply as an individual. However, the process of applying as an individual is quite complex, starting with building a support team of at least 500 members and passing a vetting process; Then it is necessary to collect at least 100,000 signatures of Russian citizens, and the number of signatures in each state or autonomous republic cannot exceed 2500. If the applicant is not a member of any political party, then the number of signatures required is increased to 300,000 and the signature limit is increased to 7,500 per region.
That is, Najriddin needs to collect at least 100,000 signatures. While the 100,000 signatures may seem like a small number compared to the more than 300,000 signatures Putin has collected, it is also quite difficult to collect. However, the enthusiasm of some of the Russian population allowed Najzhdin's fears to be allay. Judging by the many **releases**, in large cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are long queues of pro-Nadezhdin, and the number of signatures for him far exceeds the required 100,000, which indicates that there are not many people who support Nadezhddin and hold an anti-war position.
Recently, Najriddin announced on social media ** that he has collected 100,000 signatures for his candidacy, but he plans to collect at least 5,000 more signatures to ensure a smooth candidacy. This is because the signatures will be submitted to the Election Commission for examination, and if more than 5% of the signatures are found to be unqualified, he will be disqualified from running. Previously, the female journalist Deng Zova, who had threatened to compete with Putin, was disqualified from running because she failed the signature check, and Nadezhddin naturally did not want to repeat the same mistake.
The Kremlin's attitude towards the sudden appearance of the candidate is somewhat subtle. Judging by past performances, their attitude towards Najriddin seems to be positive. Nadezhddin has revealed that he had a one-on-one secret meeting with Putin last October and had a conversation for nearly an hour.
Although we don't know exactly what they were talking about, the act itself is very unusual. As a **, Putin has a lot of official business to attend to every day, so why take time out to meet with an opposition who wants to overthrow him? The only explanation is that the Kremlin and Najriddin already have a cooperative relationship: the Kremlin helps Najriddin pass the campaign eligibility test, and Najriddin guarantees not to launch an attack on Putin. On the one hand, the Kremlin could use Najriddin to demonstrate the diversity of the election and increase the overall turnout; On the other hand, although Nadezhddin cannot defeat Putin, he can increase his political influence and attract more attention by running for election.
Judging by the current situation, Najriddin seems to have clashed with the Kremlin. Not only did he openly call Putin a "tyrant" and criticized his military operation against Ukraine as a "fatal mistake", but he also accused him of using Russia's financial sector to solve problems for the Kremlin. However, it is also possible that Najriddin took radical actions to win votes.
Overall, while the general consensus is that the results are clear, we should still pay more attention to brave challengers like Najriddin. With less than two months to go until March 17, we can wait patiently to see if Najriddin will be able to get through the final hurdle and have a real showdown with Putin.