The rise and fall of Yekaterina Duntsova, the woman who hoped to oust Putin

After months of work, Yekaterina Duntsova, one of the first independents to announce a candidacy for the 2024 Russian election, will not see her name on the ballot.

According to the Associated Press, Russia’s Central Election Commission rejected her candidacy, arguing that her paperwork contained mistakes, including spelling errors.

Image: Yekaterina Dunstova / Telegram

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Duntsova, a journalist, announced her candidacy in 2023. The announcement was surprising because she was an outsider to Putin's opposition and had major reforms in mind.

The 40-year-old is also a single mother to three children and holds a law degree, she explained on her campaign website. She is from Tver, a region in Siberia.

Image: Duntsova's campaign website (duntsova2024)

"Any sane person taking this step would be afraid," she told Reuters, of defying Putin's unchallenged rule for over the past 20 years as an independent candidate.

However, the scariest thing about her decision was her platform: peace and democracy. During her campaign, prosecutors questioned her under the law that criminalizes discussing the war.

The candidate also proposed groundbreaking reforms to the country's political system. She told Reuters that she hoped to stop Russia from closing itself off from the world.

According to her campaign site, she believes that "for at least ten years, the country has been moving in the wrong direction" toward "self-destruction."

Image: Yekaterina Dunstova / Telegram

She also promised to release Russia's political prisoners, including Alexei Navalny, now deceased and whose funeral she attended.

She also vowed to give more power to the Federal Assembly (Russia's parliament), decentralize the power, and give more responsibility to local authorities.

From the start, she knew she would face many challenges, including gathering her supporters for endorsement, presenting her candidacy, and collecting signatures to ensure it.

Still, she presented her candidacy to the Central Election Commission in December, and after it was immediately rejected, she appealed with no success.

According to AP News, she asked the leaders of the liberal Yabloko political party to nominate her so she could still run, but they rejected the idea.

Image: Yekaterina Duntsova / Telegram

After the rejection, the Commission accepted another anti-war candidate: Boris Nadezhdin. She rallied her supporters around him, but his plea was rejected in the next phase.

According to the Moscow Times, the former candidate gathered her associates in Tver to establish the organizing committee of a new political party they will call 'Dawn (Rassvet).

Image: Duntsova's campaign website (duntsova2024)

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Duntsova gathered significant support and enough relevance to be called an "overnight political star" by Politico. The stop of her 2024 presidential plea might not be the end, but only the ashes from where she will rise.