Russia, the big presidential announcement. From elderly communist to TV face: 29 additional figures challenging Putin

Rome, December 27, 2023 – They are more than just candidates, they are ballot-stuffing names. there Russia The process that will lead to The upcoming presidential electionsIt is scheduled to take place between March 15 and 17, 2024. The first stage consists of collecting signatures to be able to submit your nomination. At this stage, it is necessary to obtain the support of at least 500 people. The deadline ends today and at this time people who can Putin's challengeas determined by the Russian Election Commission, there are twenty-nine, or rather 30 minus one.

Ekaterina DontsovaIn fact it was Excluded from the list Due to “procedural errors”. The woman, only 40 years old, had already become well-known as a councilor in the Tver region, about 200 kilometers from Moscow. A young mother of three with a reformist and peaceful agenda, in Putin's Russia it is equated with being a revolutionary. Perhaps this is also the reason why it was previously excluded from the list of competitors. The person in question said that she would appeal the ruling, but it appears that her presidential candidacy ended before it began.

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So 29 people remain to face what appears to be a truly impossible task. First, aspiring candidates will have to pass The second stage of signature collection For nomination this time at least 300 thousand will be needed, collected in at least 40 federal entities of the vast Russian territory. Here comes the first hurdle to overcome. If President Putin is a known face everywhere, the other candidates are more or less complete strangers. Therefore, it is very likely that there will already be significant skimming in this second phase. Then there is a two-month election campaign, where they will have to try to convince Russian citizens that they can replace the Tsar who has led the country for more than 20 years.

There are two categories that are never in short supply: “old gadget” and exotic. In the first group is the standard-bearer of the Russian Communist Party, the successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This abbreviation represents the second force of the National Parliament and still considers itself an important party, and in fact is the real opposition to President Putin. But it is a minority that never emerged in the Duma due to its activity in opposing the policies of the first man in the Kremlin, to the extent that it gained the title of “instrumental opposition.” Your candidate is called Nikolai KharitonovHe is 75 years old. Therefore, there is no place for young people. This is not his first time in presidential elections. He had tried to challenge Putin in 2004, receiving 13.7% of the vote.

For strangers he will run Boris NadezhdinHe is a well-known figure in the news due to his political career and appearances on television. Born in 1963, of Uzbek origin, he played in various center-right formations more or less linked to the oligarchs and bureaucrats during the era of Boris Yeltsin, and gradually entered into a collision course with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also strongly criticized the amendments. For a constitution which, when re-elected, would give the Tsar almost unlimited powers.

Like Dontsova, he proposes a reform programme, a return to the old constitution and, above all, an end to the conflict with Ukraine. It is possible that the votes of the excluded candidate will converge on him. In the last electionsheld in 2018, Putin received 74% of the votes. “accompanied” ratio. This time the president is aiming for a more referendum result.