@PS That's a pretty big sell. What prompted you to sell your position down to 1.5% ?

@42irrationalist I accidentally sold more than I intended (got confused because I forgot I had a limit order placed, so I sold my Yes position while buying it up at the same time). But in general, two things made me think Nadezhdin won't make any real trouble for the state: he didn't mention protests anymore, and he announced an appeal against the electoral legislation, basically accepting the Electoral Commission's verdict itself, and not calling out the irregularities.

@PS Apparently, he told the Electoral Commission that he doesn't have any complaints about its work and hopes for good relations going forward.

@AVS Actually, I feel the two markets should be relatively close...

@42irrationalist Curious about your thinking here - any specific reasons for the low probability?

@PS

1. Nadezhdin is not a part of the real opposition, for example he used to go on TV all the time. He is not independent from Kremlin, and there are rumours that him running for president was approved by Kremlin.

2. Nadezhdin currently seems to be not 100% controlled by Kremlin: he criticises the war and Putin. It's a problem for Kremlin, but they have an easy solution: not putting him on a ballot. He's currently collecting signatures (he needs 100 000). They will likely find "errors" in some of these 100k signatures.

3. If they don't register him, he's unlikely to be dangerous to Kremlin (and IMO he's unlikely to continue to actively criticise Putin). They won't really need a criminal case against him. Case in point. Duntsova, another person who wanted to run for president, is a lot more independent than Nadezhdin. They simply didn't register her as a candidate — and there is not criminal case in sight against her.

@42irrationalist Thanks! Actually, I largely agree with all of your points, although there seem to be indications (🇷‍🇺) that his candidacy was not really approved by the Kremlin (or at least not by "the Kremlin", but at most by one of the factions within it). However, Duntsova was much more low-profile and thus less of a threat. I also agree it's unlikely Nadezhdin will be actually persecuted; I just think it's not that unlikely.

@PS

> However, Duntsova was much more low-profile and thus less of a threat.

Yeah, that's a fair point. My general sense is that Russian "competitive authoritarianism" lets "system" candidates compete for various positions and it occasionally permits "semi-system"/"somewhat-out-of-system" candidates run too with little repercussions. Nadezhdin seem to fall in this camp for me.

I'm curious what are the scenarios with the most probability for a criminal case getting launched against him?

@42irrationalist That's certainly true, but I think this only applies so long as the "systemic opposition" candidate plays by the (largely unwritten) rules and doesn't cause trouble.

I can imagine several scenarios, the most obvious one including Nadezhdin's candidacy being rejected by the Electoral Committee and him calling for protests, to end up being arrested for calls to unlawful protests. Alternatively, even just a claim that he was unjustly left out might be enough for the authorities to initiate proceedings - I'm sure that they can find a quote in some of his interviews or statement that can be interpreted as "insulting the authorities" or "discreditation of the Russian army".

@PS

I can imagine several scenarios, the most obvious one including Nadezhdin's candidacy being rejected by the Electoral Committee and him calling for protests, to end up being arrested for calls to unlawful protests.

Yeah, that's one big scenario for me too. But I'd say the probability of him calling for protests or otherwise fighting for his candidacy if he doesn't get registered is 5-10%. What would be your estimate?

@42irrationalist I'm honestly unsure about that. A couple of weeks ago, I'd have said it's <5%. But now, he seems to have grown more "radical" from the point of the Kremlin. So I would put the probability of him calling the Electoral Committee out at about 20%, but with a very wide confidence interval.

@42irrationalist More limit orders at 15% and 10%, if you want to go there :)

@PS My probability estimate is around 10-15% so I might end up taking them, but I want to go slowly! Plus, I want to contemplate the chances of the criminal case better.

@42irrationalist

But I'd say the probability of him calling for protests or otherwise fighting for his candidacy if he doesn't get registered is 5-10%.

From a recent interview:

Q: You’ve already said that if they refuse to let you register, then you have a plan: your supporters will apply for permits to hold protests in 150 cities. What’s the next step if, for example, the authorities refuse to authorize the protests?

A: I actually have a test situation right now. The Dolgoprudny authorities refused to grant permission to the families of mobilized soldiers who wanted to protest; the denial actually was because of COVID-19. On January 31, the court is going to consider a class action lawsuit from dozens of people. We’ll see what happens.

Q: So the next step would be to go to court?

A: Yesterday, I addressed a large group of my supporters in Moscow. People asked, “What will you do if they don’t let you register?” Personally, I do think they’re going to let me register, because denying my application would cause a bigger problem for them than registering me. But if they don’t register me after all, I’m considering applying for a permit to hold a rally. Not a Maidan [Revolution], God forbid.

Q: And if they deny all of your requests and you lose the lawsuits, what will you do then?

A: That’s an interesting question.

@PS Thanks for the information! From game-theoretic perspective it makes sense for him to say this, and it'd also make sense to not follow through or follow through in a minimal way.

I am not updating really based on this interview. I'd update more if he had a track record of political activism and protesting, but AFAIK he doesn't.

See also: