Who is standing against Putins anointed successor Dmitry Medvedev?
Andrei Bogdanov, 38, is virtually unknown and qualified as a candidate by collecting 2 million signatures from voters. Since his Democratic Party only gained 90,000 votes in December’s parliamentary election, many suspect that the Kremlin has put him on the ballot to ensure that there were at least two candidates, in compliance with Russian law, if others decided to boycott the vote in protest. Bogdanov’s former role as a public relations adviser to the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which backs Dmitri Medvedev, has only strengthened these suspicions, though he has dismissed the accusation as a “fantasy”. What size of victory is expected and is there any chance of an upset? Rumours have been circulating for some time that the Kremlin is keen to ensure that Medvedev gets about 65 per cent of the vote so that he can claim a popular mandate for continuing to implement “Putin’s Plan”. I have only slightly less chance of being President of Russia than any of the other candidates – and I’m
