MOSCOW – Anti-war Russian presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin said Wednesday he submitted 105,000 signatures endorsing his candidacy for the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) review.
Nadezhdin, 60, the nominee from the center-right Civic Initiative party, has seen an uptick in support in recent weeks with Russians standing in long lines to endorse his bid in the March presidential election.
“The support continues to grow. A month ago, no one could have imagined that people would line up to leave signatures for me and no one can predict to what extent it will grow by election day,” Nadezhdin told a Moscow Times reporter during a meeting with dozens of supporters in the Russian capital on Sunday.
In addition to openly advocating for ending the war against Ukraine, Nadezhdin has also promised to return Russian soldiers home, free political prisoners and normalize relations with the West if elected.
“Russia must be peaceful and free,” Nadezhdin told The Moscow Times when asked about his message to the West as a presidential hopeful.
“There will be hard work to rebuild trust, but I am absolutely convinced that the fundamental interests of all European states also involve Russia being peaceful and free — on this basis, we would be able to find agreement,” Nadezhdin said.
He added that, if elected, he aimed to sign a peace treaty with Ukraine “with the support of European countries” in negotiations.
“This work spans several years, and it is very challenging, but hostilities need to stop immediately," Nadezhdin told The Moscow Times.
Under Russian election law, a presidential hopeful running from a party not represented in parliament must collect 100,000 signatures of endorsement, with no more than 2,500 from each of Russia's regions.
Though Nadezhdin hit the 100,000-signature milestone last week, his team continued to collect signatures to avoid errors in the documents and surpass the regional quota.
As of Wednesday, Nadezhdin has collected more than 200,000 signatures, excluding those collected outside Russia.
Despite having thousands of supporters abroad who have left signatures to endorse him, the hopeful said last week that he would only submit signatures collected inside the country.
The CEC has 10 days to review hopeful candidates’ signatures after the Jan. 31 submission deadline.
The commission has already officially approved four candidates to run for the election — President Vladimir Putin, who is running as an independent candidate, as well as Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
The Kremlin said last week that it doesn’t view Nadezhdin as a significant competitor to Putin, who is widely expected to secure his fifth presidential term.
However, experts call the visible support for pro-peace Nadezhdin “the most striking political event” at the beginning of the year and a new form of anti-war protests in Russia.
