Russia’s Anti-War Presidential Hopeful Nadezhdin Collects 150K Signatures of Support

Russian anti-war presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin has gathered over 150,000 signatures endorsing his bid to run in the March election, his campaign website showed Thursday.
While Nadezhdin hit the milestone of 100,000 signatures needed for the Russian Central Election Commission’s (CEC) review on Tuesday, his campaign had stressed that it would aim to collect 150,000 overall to avoid any mistakes in the paperwork and surpass the regional quota.
Under Russian election laws, 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.
The deadline for submitting the signatures to CEC is Jan. 31. 
A banner on Nadezhdin’s campaign website showed more than 158,000 signatures had been collected for the 60-year-old veteran politician as of Thursday afternoon.
His campaign has not yet said whether it plans to continue collecting signatures after having reached its goal. 
Nadezhdin, who hopes to run as an independent candidate from the Civic Initiative party, has seen a surge of support over the past week.
Long lines have formed outside his campaign offices both inside Russia and abroad as thousands of pro-peace Russians hope to safely express their opposition to the war in Ukraine by endorsing his election bid. 
The Kremlin said Wednesday it does not view Nadezhdin as a serious rival to Vladimir Putin, who is widely expected to win his fifth overall presidential term.
Nadezhdin’s campaign says the number of signatures indicated on its website does not include signatures collected outside of Russia. 
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