Image by Kremlin.ru
Russia socialite and journalist, Kseniya Sobchak, the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former boss, the first democratically elected mayor of St. Petersburg, declared today she will run for president against Putin in the 2018 presidential elections.
She made the announcement on the Dozhd TV news channel will running her television show, Sobchak Live.
Sobchak made a point of declaring that any election without opposition candidate Alexei Navalny participating would be a fraud and should be boycotted.
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“By rejecting the legal and safe but still significant manifestation of our will as participants in controlled, imperfect, even dishonest elections, we do not leave ourselves any out except street resistance,” reported The Moscow Times.
History shows that even elections controlled by authoritarian governments “turned into reasons and instruments for authentic democratic changes,” wrote The Moscow Times.
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“This always occurred when the opposition took part in elections, and never with its silent non-participation.”
The candidacy seems to be Kremlin-backed with a prize of a state TV show awarded for taking votes away from other liberal candidates. Sobchak had been banned from being shown on Kremlin TV due to previous participation in anti-government protests.
