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.
There was never going to be any fight and there was never going to be an election with more than one person on the ballot.
It’s illegal to say anything bad about the government, the military or Putin. Anything you say against them could be construed as misinformation, which is also illegal.
Any other candidates would need to be approved by the Kremlin so they could at least campaign. Oh, did I say the Kremlin? I meant Putin.
Obviously Putin is going to get 105% of the votes. There’s no winning if you’re not Putin.
But this is still quite a disaster for Putin as the collected votes are the closest thing to citizens expressing their real opinion on Putin.
That’s why they are trying to present the signatures as illegitimate. It’s not that they are afraid of losing elections to the opposition. It’s the fact that the opposition got such a support that is problem.
But if there will be popular candidate Belarus can happen.
It wouldn’t get as far as Belarus IMO. Belarusian people don’t have such a slave mindset. They are not free, but they are also willing to fight somewhat for their rights.
But still, popular candidate would be a problem in russia.
thank you for giving us the point of view of fear and defeat… everyone, this guy’s post is what fear looks like… it’s what it looks like to be defeated before you even try…
Nadezhdin hasn’t stopped yet
That’s not fear… that’s just looking at the situation in a dictatorship. Even if Nadezhdin would be on the ballot (and win), Putin would win according to the official results with a huge majority.
yeah, that internalized fear and defeatism is why dictatorships persist
Describing things how they are is not fear. That’d be not describing them at all.
Nadezhdin understands how things are, yet he is still going… the people who signed petitions understand how things are, yet they went out and signed their names to it… it’s just my opinion…
Meanwhile Lukashenko: I’ve got 80%!
Belarusians: Sasha 3%
Lukashenko: Putin, help me!
It’s not fear. I am simply pointing out an illusion.
you can’t overcome a fear that you don’t acknowledge
Sure, your statement is true. However, it is out of context and irrelevant to the point.
The illusion is democracy and that the people are in control of their government. To make sure any election looks “fair”, you need a little bit of drama. Putin must have an opponent for this illusion to work.
This has little to do with fear. If anything, it’s reducing fear in the populus by saying: “See! We are a democracy. The people still get to have their elections and here is an opponent to prove it.” The people are placated and life goes on. I have some fairly interesting theories about why the election is even allowed, but this is not the place for that speculation.
(Didn’t Putin do a little prime minister shuffle a couple of years ago? The person who was temporarily president is proving to be just as toxic and is also calling for nuking the world, I believe.)
Either the opponent gracefully loses, he gets thrown out of a window or gets a long vacation to some random corner of Siberia.
If anything, it’s the illusion of hope that is more destructive than fear, in this case.
fear dances around and talks a lot about illusions
You use so many words to say absolutely nothing.
maybe you need a hug
There you go again! Fewer words this time I guess, so we’ll call that an improvement.
I am being serious and request you do the same.
Analogies are akin to a defense mechanism, so it’s not helping your case.
Edit: I will note that Russian analogies and proverbs are some of the best in the world.
you go ahead and imagine that you are the serious one… you are obviously not one of the people who were willing to go out and sign a petition with Nadezhdin’s name on it…