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.

Archive

  • Norgur
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    1051 year ago

    “you have error in documents”

    “What would that be?”

    “In field ‘name’ is not ‘Vladimir Putin’. Grave error in documents, we cannot accept”

    • FuglyDuck
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      121 year ago

      what’s even more convenient is they submitted them on the 48th floor… where the windows are well tended and open easily.

  • @iarigby@lemmy.world
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    251 year ago

    Doing this to the puppet “opponent” that they themselves came up with, to create an illusion that he’s a real candidate… So messed up, they’re laughing in people’s faces

  • @not_that_guy05@lemmy.world
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    231 year ago

    Welp I guess there goes another window. Also, I would like to mention that the same game plan is being used by Putin as Cheeto Mussolini was trying to do.

    2 peas blah blah blah. You get it.

  • theodewere
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    201 year ago

    this will not be a surprise for Nadezhdin and his team… i’m sure they have been expecting this fight from the beginning, although they didn’t expect to have as much support behind them going into it…

    • @remotelove@lemmy.ca
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      121 year ago

      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.

      • @mea_rah@lemmy.world
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        51 year ago

        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.

          • @mea_rah@lemmy.world
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            -11 year ago

            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.

      • theodewere
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        1 year ago

        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

        • @Korne127@lemmy.world
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          41 year ago

          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.

          • theodewere
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            21 year ago

            yeah, that internalized fear and defeatism is why dictatorships persist

              • theodewere
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                1 year ago

                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…

            • @uis@lemmy.world
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              11 year ago

              Meanwhile Lukashenko: I’ve got 80%!

              Belarusians: Sasha 3%

              Lukashenko: Putin, help me!

            • @remotelove@lemmy.ca
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              31 year ago

              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.

                • @remotelove@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  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.

    • @uis@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      this will not be a surprise for Nadezhdin and his team…

      Yes.

      i’m sure they have been expecting this fight from the beginning

      I don’t think so. Compared to Navalny 6 years ago he is not prepared at all.

      although they didn’t expect to have as much support behind them going into it…

      Seems so

  • andrew_bidlaw
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    171 year ago

    A minor correction: His guys brought the max of 105 000 (from 200k+) signatures and the margin of error is set to 5%. Izbirkom spoke about two candidates at that time when they summoned them. Earlier a state official incorrectly stated that the ballot of 5 signatures can’t be brought with just one. Also, Izbirkom is said to use LLM to detect fake signatures lmao.

    Yet, they can make up everything and has all tools to do so. I’m just curious what would they pick. And a brief wind of hope they wouldn’t be able to, just for the sake of legitimization since that guy in the world news.

  • @Flying_Dutch_Rudder@lemmy.world
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    141 year ago

    If I ever ran opposed to Putin, I would never leave the ground floor. Can fall out of a window that’s 5 feet off the ground. Stairs just wouldn’t exist in my world.

  • @fidodo@lemmy.world
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    131 year ago

    How kind of them. They’re trying to save him from mysteriously falling out of a window.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    101 year ago

    I imagine the issue was with his Death Certificate it was filed, but the state sponsored hitman is taking his time.

  • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    91 year ago

    This is interesting.

    It’s widely assumed that Putin has various measures to ensure he’ll win no matter who runs against him.

    This could be an indication that he’s unpopular enough that even these measures won’t be enough to ensure he’ll win.

    • @uis@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      Same happened 6 years ago.

      Also there was poll last year what maximum age should be for presidency. 60% are against 70 years or older president. Bunker Rat is 71.