Putin's Election Plan is Backfiring

Russian presidential challenger Boris Nadezhdin has become more prominent than government officials anticipated and the Kremlin may not allow him to run in this year's presidential election as a result, U.S.-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has assessed.

In January it said that the Kremlin may use the March 2024 vote as an unofficial referendum on Russia's war in Ukraine by allowing Nadezhdin to run in an election that portrays President Vladimir Putin, and by extension his war in Ukraine, as overwhelmingly popular. Nadezhdin is the only presidential candidate who openly opposes Putin and the war in Ukraine.

Its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Monday, however, said that a recent announcement could signal that the Kremlin may have backtracked from this plan out of concern that Nadezhdin might gain too many votes and reduce Putin's margin of victory below levels the Kremlin is willing to accept.

The think tank was referring to an announcement on Monday from Russia's electoral authority, the Central Election Commission (CEC), regarding Nadezhdin, which said it discovered a 15 percent error rate in the signatures collected by his campaign. Under electoral rules, error rates must not exceed five percent should a candidate wish to be registered. The electoral authority is due to make a final call on Nadezhdin's candidacy on Wednesday.

Nadezhdin said his team plans to contest the findings.

Russian presidential candidates sponsored by political parties need to submit 100,000 signatures, with additional regional requirements, to run in a presidential election, the ISW notes.

The think tank said Monday that the CEC's valid signature requirement is "the logical mechanism for ending Nadezhdin's presidential campaign whether or not the Kremlin was initially willing to tolerate the campaign."

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

If Putin is re-elected this year, it would be his fifth term as Russian president. Under constitutional changes made prior to the war in Ukraine, he may remain in power until 2036.

Russia's elections have historically been marred by manipulation, ballot stuffing and forced voting. Putin's biggest critics are typically barred from running for president, while opposition figures, such as Alexei Navalny, have often been jailed or are exiled.

The ISW said Russian officials and sources have increasingly censored and sought to discredit Nadezhdin after his campaign gained significant prominence and his popularity received a boost.

For example, Russian CEC deputy chairperson Nikolai Bulaev questioned Nadezhdin's integrity on February 2, saying that his "campaign collected dozens of signatures of deceased Russians."

During a recent segment on state TV, Kremlin propagandist and Putin ally Vladimir Solovyov said he believes Nadezhdin will eventually be poisoned or imprisoned.

Nadezhdin previously called for Putin's ousting in a rare display of public opposition.

"We simply have to choose different authorities to govern the country that would stop this story with Ukraine," he said on state TV channel NTV in May 2023, adding that he believed that a change of government would allow Russia to "build relations" with European countries and "everything will come back into place."

Nadezhdin said that in the 2024 presidential election "we need to choose somebody else, and not Putin. Everything will be good then."

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