Rumours have surfaced that Russian presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin may have torpedoed his own presidential application by submitting signatures to the CEC that were fake, Meduza reported on February 6.

Allegations have surfaced that Nadezhdin’s own campaign team may have compromised his ballot registration. The controversy stems from a report by opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe, which suggests internal strife within Nadezhdin's camp led to the submission of thousands of potentially invalid signatures to Russia's Central Election Commission. The news has sparked a whirlwind of accusations and denials, casting a shadow over Nadezhdin's presidential ambitions.

Nadezhdin submitted the maximum of 105,000 signatures to the Central Election Committee (CEC) this week, part of the application process to run in the presidential race slated for March. However, the CEC rejected 15% of the signatures, expressing “surprise” at the number, which could disqualify Nadezhdin for having less than the required 100,000 signatures on his petition.

Nadezhdin and representatives of his party were due to meet with CEC officials on February 6 and said that if they can confirm the authenticity of 4,500 names or more Nadezhdin should be confirmed as one of the five candidates.

However, a controversy has sprung up in the last day, as some members of Nadezhdin’s team claim that the would-be candidate submitted thousands of fake names on purpose to torpedo his own chances.

Nadezhdin has caused a headache for the Kremlin, as he is the only potential candidate that has openly called for an end to the war in Ukraine; something that has resonated with voters, who came out in their droves to sign his petition. The Kremlin is very reluctant to turn the presidential vote into a de facto referendum on the war, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear he is preparing for a long war.

As Nadezhdin is widely seen as supported by the Kremlin as a political project to give the election more legitimacy, those plans have gone awry, say analysts, by the size of support for Nadezhdin’s anti-war stance.

Those that say Nadezhdin has torpedoed his own campaign speculate that as a Kremlin loyalist, by submitting fake signatures, Nadezhdin has given the Kremlin a face-saving way to exclude him from the poll without overtly banning his participation on flimsier grounds and thus risking mass protests to have him reinstated.

Because of the political sensitivity of his anti-war stance, speculation was already rife before he submitted his signatures for approval that the Kremlin would find a way to bar him from running. Other more liberal and clearly opposition candidates were already excluded by the CEC before Nadezhdin submitted his list of names.

According to sources cited by Novaya Gazeta, factions within the Nadezhdin campaign clashed over the verification of signatures, resulting in the inclusion of around 20,000 dubious signatures among the 105,000 submitted.

The internal disputes occurred at a secret meeting on the outskirts of Moscow on February 4, in a locale referred to by insiders as "the cabin," which served as a covert base for the campaign's final push.

The situation escalated when volunteers from Nadezhdin's public campaign, tasked with quality checking the signatures, were allegedly ejected from the meeting by Alexander Nazarenko, a political strategist hired by Nadezhdin. Nazarenko is accused of threatening the volunteers, deepening the rift within the campaign.

Speculation abounds regarding the motives behind the alleged sabotage. Some sources suggest a simple miscommunication, while others hint at a deliberate strategy by the Civic Initiative Party, which nominated Nadezhdin, to meet bureaucratic requirements at any cost. Further complicating matters, two other political consultants linked to Nadezhdin, Konstantin Vlasov and Rodion Adikaev, have come under scrutiny for their past affiliations and contradictory political stances.

In response to the allegations, representatives from Civic Initiative and Nadezhdin's campaign have vehemently denied any wrongdoing, framing the Novaya Gazeta report as a smear campaign. Andrey Nechaev, the party leader, insinuated that the publication aimed to appease Russian authorities by discrediting Nadezhdin. The campaign insists that over 211,000 signatures were collected, with only the most credible submitted for verification.

The controversy has also drawn in prominent opposition figure Maxim Katz, who lambasted Novaya Gazeta for what he perceives as a betrayal of the anti-war cause. Katz accused the newspaper of publishing the report for financial gain, a claim that remains unsubstantiated and unlikely given the newspaper’s editor in chief Dmitry Muratov was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his scrupulousness in sticking to liberal journalistic ethics.

As the deadline looms for the CEC to review the disputed signatures, Nadezhdin's campaign is in a race against time to salvage his candidacy. Nadezhdin has until February 7 to convince the commission to accept the contested signatures. Failing that, he may appeal to Russia's Supreme Court.