Illustration copyright PETR KOVALEV/TASS Image caption Sobchak chose as an ally the opponent of her slogan “Against everyone”

Ksenia Sobchak will run for the presidential election from the Civil Initiative party of economist Andrei Nechaev. Negotiations with Mikhail Kasyanov's PARNAS party were unsuccessful.

The election headquarters of TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak, who announced her participation in the presidential elections, has decided on the scheme for her nomination. The TV presenter will be nominated by the Civil Initiative party, two sources at the TV presenter’s election headquarters told the BBC Russian Service (they asked for anonymity, as they are not authorized to give official comments). “Your suspicions are not unfounded, but let’s wait a couple more hours,” Nechaev told the BBC, without specifying why he had to wait.

Sobchak's representative Ksenia Chudinova noted that Sobchak is open to all proposals, and she herself spoke about this several times. “Andrei Nechaev is right in the sense that “the suspicions are not unfounded” - we are negotiating with various democratic forces - but we are not yet ready to make statements,” Chudinova told the BBC.

Nomination from a political party will allow Sobchak to collect only 100 thousand signatures. If she ran as a self-nominated candidate, she would need to collect 300 thousand signatures.

An hour after the publication of the BBC Russian Service, Sobchak’s headquarters confirmed that the TV presenter would run in the elections from the “Civil Initiative”.

The candidate does not believe

The "Civil Initiative" party was created and registered in 2013. As the description on the party’s website says, it was “created in the wake of the protests of 2011-2012,” which party members supported. The party program states that its main goal is “the transformation of Russia into a modern country respected in the world, in which a comfortable and safe life is ensured for each of us.”

The only famous person in this party is its chairman Andrei Nechaev. In 1992-1993 Nechaev was the Russian Minister of Economy. In the elections of State Duma deputies in 2016, Nechaev ran on the federal list of Boris Titov’s “Growth Party”.

In October, Nechaev wrote about Sobchak on his Facebook page that he considered “the nomination to the highest post of a person who has not been involved in politics in recent years and has not participated in any elections, at a minimum, raising questions.”

“It is absolutely obvious that Sobchak has no chance of being elected,” Nechaev wrote, noting that Sobchak herself did not approach him with a request to be nominated from his party.

Later he said that he did not share Sobchak’s slogan “Against everyone.”

In 2016, “Civil Initiative” spent 224 thousand rubles, as follows from the party’s financial report published on the Central Election Commission website. The party's website lists the addresses of more than 50 regional branches.

Failed negotiations

Sobchak’s headquarters also negotiated with the PARNAS party and its leader Mikhail Kasyanov, RBC was the first to write about this. Kasyanov has already met with Sobchak in person and discussed the possibility of nominating a TV presenter from the party; Sobchak herself spoke about this. Neither side reported the result of the negotiations.

On November 13, a PARNAS statement appeared, signed by Kasyanov, calling on opposition candidates to unite and create a coalition in the presidential elections. Kasyanov turned to Sobchak, as well as to the founder of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky and Alexei Navalny. The document noted that the participation of the opposition in the presidential elections can be effective “only if the Democrats go together.”

PARNAS deputy chairman Konstantin Merzlikin told the BBC that the party's official position on supporting any of the candidates in the presidential election is reflected in Kasyanov's statement. According to him, PARNAS is ready to nominate only a single opposition candidate for the elections, and if one does not appear, it will not participate in them at all. Merzlikin declined to comment further.

At the same time, a BBC interlocutor in the leadership of PARNAS, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to comment on negotiations with Sobchak to the press, said that there is no consensus in the party to support the TV presenter in the elections. He noted that Sobchak’s headquarters wanted to use the regional PARNAS network during the campaign, but part of the party leadership opposed this.

An interlocutor at Sobchak’s headquarters told the BBC on condition of anonymity that for them the option of nomination from the “Civil Initiative” is more preferable - supposedly this will simplify the process of collecting signatures, and in general it is easier to work with the “Civil Initiative”.

"Civil Initiative" before the State Duma elections, in 2015, was an ally of PARNAS and was in the same coalition with it. The democratic coalition was created on April 17-18 on the basis of PARNAS, since the party still has the right to nominate its list in the State Duma elections without collecting voter signatures. The party received it thanks to the fact that in 2013 Boris Nemtsov ran its list in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma and himself became a deputy. That coalition also included Alexei Navalny's Progress Party, Vladimir Milov's Democratic Choice, as well as the Libertarian Party and the December 5 Party. The civil initiative, however, left the coalition in May, refusing to participate in the primaries and deciding to nominate candidates from itself, and not from PARNAS.

Illustration copyright KOLCHIN ALEXEI/TASS Image caption Sobchak has just started holding meetings with voters

Neither PARNAS nor the Civil Initiative got a single deputy into the State Duma in the 2016 elections. In the end, “Civil Initiative” did not participate in them at all; PARNAS scored 0.73%.

Sobchak announced plans to run for president in 2018, calling herself a candidate “against everyone.” Its headquarters was headed by Igor Malashenko.

Russian political strategist Alexey Sitnikov, a participant in Boris Yeltsin’s election campaign in 1996 and a consultant to the head of the Ukrainian “Fatherland” Yulia Tymoshenko, was initially responsible for collecting signatures and coordinating the work of volunteers at the headquarters.

Nevertheless, at the end of October, Sitnikov announced his resignation from headquarters due to “different approaches to organizing the process” and “confusion.” He complained that members of the headquarters chipped in on security, air tickets and office rent. About thirty people left Sobchak’s team along with the political strategist.

Sobchak herself, in an interview with the Russian Service, said that she looked at Sitnikov’s work for two weeks “and realized that it would be more expedient to move in a different direction - in order to both save money and make the work efficient.”

Sitnikov's replacement at the headquarters was Timur Valeev from Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Open Russia. On November 8, he confirmed that he would be responsible, among other things, for collecting signatures.

Journalist and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak, who announced her intention to run in the Russian presidential elections as a “candidate against everyone,” plans to create a new movement or party after the elections. Sobchak told reporters of the Dozhd TV channel about this. According to her, there has not been a party of this kind in the country for a long time.

“My role is a person who, having shown a certain result with the line “against everyone,” can then form a big movement, a party, which can only then participate in the Duma elections. A movement that has not existed in Russia for so long,” Sobchak quotes Dozhd as saying.

At the same time, Sobchak did not rule out that problems may arise with the registration of her candidacy for the presidential election. However, the journalist expressed hope that the authorities will allow her registration, explaining that otherwise “this will be a different level of shame for the whole world” against the backdrop of the denial of the right to stand for election to Alexei Navalny due to a criminal case.

When asked whether her headquarters has financial difficulties, she admitted that there are certain difficulties with financing. However, speaking about the departure of political strategist Alexei Sitnikov from her headquarters, who said that she had no money, Sobchak expressed the opinion that Sitnikov left only because “he didn’t quite fit into our campaign.”

In connection with Sobchak’s statements, the media began to wonder whether she really had no political ambitions (as she imagined it when declaring her intention to nominate her candidacy), and most importantly, whether she could really create a somewhat viable party, and so they Sobchak interested in the emergence of this party.

About how big the problems of registering as a candidate for the presidential elections are for Ksenia Sobchak, and also about whether there is a high probability that she really intends to create a party and engage in political activities, or there is some other meaning in this statement of hers, with “ Political scientist Grigory Golosov spoke to Polit.ru.

“Regarding the prospects for registration: this does not depend on Ksenia Sobchak, it depends on the presidential administration. If they think that Ksenia Sobchak is needed to revive the election campaign, then they will register her. And if they think otherwise, they won’t register it.

Now there are signs that perhaps the presidential administration is not very happy with the way things have turned out with Ksenia Sobchak - hence the candidacy of Boris Titov. But I would not rule out the possibility that it will be registered, because other alternatives - like Bogdanov and his accomplices - are completely ridiculous. The presidential administration definitely stated that there should be no completely clown candidates. Meanwhile, it is necessary to somehow mobilize the liberal electorate. From this point of view, Ksenia Sobchak, of course, can still be useful.

As for the party, it is clear that the main complaint that can be made to Ksenia Sobchak (and, in my opinion, this complaint is completely fair) is that she is not a serious candidate. But one of the aspects that makes her a frivolous candidate is that Sobchak has no political future. She is, so to speak, a “disposable” politician.

It is clear that Sobchak and members of her staff understand this claim and must somehow respond to it. Hence this idea of ​​creating a political party after the elections. Will Ksenia Sobchak do this? To tell you the truth, I doubt it. This, of course, significantly depends on what result it shows in the elections, but even here the situation is ambiguous. If she shows a very bad result, then there will be no need for her to do this. And if she shows too good a result from the point of view of the presidential administration, she will be prohibited from doing this.

In itself, creating a party according to current legislation in Russia is not a very difficult matter. In any case, it is not difficult to create an organizing committee. And it is quite possible that for some time the matter will be limited to the organizing committee - if Sobchak really wants to do this. Well, then there come such organizational moments that creating a party is an expensive undertaking and requires serious support. And, to tell the truth, I very much doubt that things can come to the point of registering a party to participate in the Duma elections. In any case.

Well, since Ksenia Sobchak is a fairly smart woman, she most likely will not do this. Her statement is designed to make her seem more politically serious because many doubt she is a serious candidate. Indeed, everything that happened around Ksenia Sobchak has so far teetered on the brink of the kind of clownery that the presidential administration wants to avoid. Therefore, it is important to give Sobchak seriousness - both from her point of view and from the point of view of the presidential administration.

Could it be that the problems with Sobchak's registration rest on a financial issue? There is no need to put the cart before the horse: if the presidential administration wants Ksenia Sobchak to participate in these elections, then there will be no financial difficulties - they will find sponsors for her. And if she doesn’t want to, naturally, no one will support her,” said Grigory Golosov.

Let us recall that it is currently assumed that Sobchak may run in elections from the Civil Initiative party - at least, Sobchak herself spoke about this. At the end of November, she held the first major meeting with activists from her headquarters in Moscow and promised to remain in politics “for a long time and seriously” as long as the headquarters worked properly (although she complained about problems in campaigning in 40 regions of the country). True, Sobchak does not yet have any election program.

As the Kommersant newspaper clarifies, Andrei Nechaev, the leader of the Civil Initiative, said that the candidate’s lack of a program does not bother him.

https://www.site/2017-10-19/sobchak_vydvinetsya_odnoy_iz_malyh_partiy_no_poluchitsya_li_u_nee_stat_kandidatom_bolshoy_vopros

No money, no time

Sobchak will be nominated by one of the “small parties”, but whether she will succeed in becoming a candidate is a big question

Anton Belitsky/Russian Look

Having announced her candidacy for the 2018 presidential election the night before, Ksenia Sobchak still left some intrigue. Namely, how the nomination will be procedurally carried out. There are several options, and, judging by the information that Sobchak herself gives, we will talk about nomination from one of the so-called small parties. The question is not only which one, but also whether Sobchak will thus be able to become a participant in the presidential race in principle. Experts do not hide their skepticism.

There are several ways to obtain registration for presidential elections. Option one is a nomination from one of the parliamentary parties. It can be called the simplest, because in this case the presidential candidate will not need to collect signatures in support of his candidacy. But in the case of Ksenia Sobchak, the simplest option turned out to be impossible by definition. The point is not even that Sobchak is ideologically poorly compatible with the Duma parties. It’s just that United Russia, A Just Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party already have their own well-known candidates.

The second path is self-promotion, and it is the most difficult. First, Sobchak will have to assemble an initiative group of at least 500 people with active voting rights. Of course, there will be no problems with this. But further, according to the law, the candidate must present at least 300 thousand signatures in support of his nomination. Moreover, one region should not have more than 7.5 thousand signatures.

Ksenia Sobchak confirmed her participation in the presidential elections in a letter to Vedomosti

When discussing why the path of a self-nominated candidate is the most difficult, experts first note that it is simply the most expensive. Presidential candidate in the 2012 elections, Mikhail Prokhorov, according to a report on the Central Election Commission website, spent 66,350,707 rubles (more than $2 million at the 2012 exchange rate). Moreover, Prokhorov’s last financial report is dated January 23, 2012, when 400 million rubles managed to arrive in the businessman’s election account. Prokhorov received 7.98% of the votes in those elections. It is known that the lion's share of expenses went precisely to collecting signatures in support of the nomination. There is a more recent example: the election website of Alexei Navalny, whom, according to one version, it was decided to replace Ksenia Sobchak in the elections, informs: in 10 months - from December 2016 to September 2017 - the candidate managed to attract more than 168 million rubles. At the same time, more than 600 thousand people registered on the site and were ready to sign for his nomination.

Ksenia Sobchak has an important resource: her Instagram has more than 5.2 million subscribers, the Twitter microblog is read by more than 1.6 million users, and Facebook by another 130 thousand. But to turn this resource into signatures that the CEC will certify, money is needed.

And Sobchak is not clear about the financial side of the campaign, say two interlocutors familiar with the situation at the headquarters of the newly minted candidate.

It is logical that Sobchak herself seems to have chosen the third path - nomination from one of the non-parliamentary parties. In this case, you will have to collect only 100 thousand reliable signatures with a limit of 2.5 thousand per region. Actually, Sobchak announced this herself - on a website called “Sobchak against everyone,” which went live on Wednesday evening. Simultaneously with the statement made by the TV presenter on the Dozhd channel, it is said that Ksenia Anatolyevna will have to collect 100 thousand signatures in her support.

Ideologically, Yabloko and PARNAS are close to Sobchak. But the first is excluded: the leader of this party, Grigory Yavlinsky, a year ago announced his intention to participate in the presidential race personally, and in September he confirmed this intention. Moreover, in her address regarding her nomination for the elections, Ksenia Sobchak herself cut off opportunities for negotiations, allowing herself a rather sharp attack against Yavlinsky as one of the “permanent candidates for the presidency.” A source in the PARNAS party told the site that some time ago a person from Ksenia Sobchak’s circle was interested in the possibility of her nomination from this party. But it came to negotiations, and it seems that it was the decision of the party itself. “The issue of Sobchak’s nomination will only quarrel everyone once again,” commented a source in the leadership of PARNAS.

After the liberalization of the law on political parties in 2012, political strategists Andrei Bogdanov and Vyacheslav Smirnov, through trusted people, registered a dozen different parties, whose task is to take formal participation in regional elections, helping, in particular, the regional authorities to draw votes from the real opposition. Among such projects are a party called “CPSU”, a party “Union of Citizens”, the People’s Party, the Social Democratic Party of Russia, the Democratic Party of Russia, etc. Smirnov told Znak.сom that Sobchak has not yet approached either him or Bogdanov . For his part, Smirnov is ready to give Ksenia Sobchak the opportunity to run from one of “his” parties. In his opinion, the “Union of Citizens” would be more suitable for Ksenia than others. Smirnov noted that they usually pay up to 50 million rubles for nomination from a “small party” in elections, but he personally is ready to help Ksenia for free: in this case, she will only need to find money for the pre-election congress, notaries and, of course, the subsequent collection of signatures. His Smirnov estimates the price at a round sum: collecting 100 thousand signatures will cost at least 100 million rubles. At the same time, collecting 300 thousand signatures is at least 200 million rubles, the political strategist added.

His colleague Andrei Bogdanov estimates the minimum cost of collecting 100 thousand signatures at $1 million, and 300 thousand at $2.5 million. He also believes that parties should be more interested in Sobchak than Sobchak in parties. “If I were Sobchak’s party, I would even pay extra, albeit a little: if a candidate gains more than 3%, then the party receives one-time money from the budget for each vote collected,” Bogdanov explained his interest. At the same time, he is convinced that it is more logical for Ksenia Sobchak to run as an independent candidate, rather than seek nomination from one of the “small parties.”

The head of the Minchenko-Consulting holding, Evgeniy Minchenko, believes that it is better for Sobchak to save money and take an unknown party for nomination. Although, he admits, a candidate positioning himself “against everyone” may still be better off as a self-nominated candidate. Minchenko estimated a campaign that will bring at least some significant results at $50 million. The head of the Political Expert Group, Konstantin Kalachev, believes that even if Sobchak receives registration, its ceiling is 1-2% of the votes. This despite the fact that it is now clear: Sobchak will be helped by administrative resources. “Sobchak says that for her means against everyone. In 1995, I also said that for the Party of Beer Lovers it was against everyone. Got less than one percent. But beer is better than Sobchak!” - Kalachev sneers.

The fate of candidate Sobchak is in the hands of the Kremlin: if it does not object, it will be possible to limit itself to imitation - to set up pickets, tents and pretend that signatures are being collected, says political scientist Abbas Gallyamov.

And if the Kremlin is ultimately against it, then nothing will help Sobchak - she simply won’t collect quality signatures. “If you involve professional field workers and political strategists, then collecting 300 thousand signatures will require at least 150 million rubles. But even if Sobchak finds them, given the tight deadlines, it will still not be possible to ensure the proper quality. At least two-thirds of the signatures she receives will be simply drawn. In principle, it can be collected among students. Sobchak is quite popular there, and collecting student signatures will cost less. But here she becomes dependent on the administrative resource. And if university administrations begin to interfere, then nothing will work out for the collectors. The overwhelming majority of students in the outback will not go against the will of the administration,” Gallyamov concludes.

Sobchak: Putin didn’t like that I decided to run for president in 2018

Two interlocutors of Znak.сom in the regions who are preparing to deploy headquarters for the presidential elections for the “main candidate” say that they have not received any instructions regarding the nomination of Ksenia Sobchak for the presidential elections. At the same time, they doubt that Sobchak will receive registration in the elections. One of the interlocutors even added that, in his opinion, Boris Yakemenko, the brother of the founder of the Nashi movement, Vasily Yakemenko, has higher chances. At the beginning of autumn, there was a rumor on the sidelines that he would run in the elections as a representative of the “conservatives”.

It is interesting that on the political sidelines they still remember the story associated with the 2007 State Duma elections. Then a rumor circulated that Ksenia Sobchak would head the list of one of these dwarf parties pushing a pro-Western agenda aimed at the liberal part of voters. For example, the Democratic Party of Russia, headed by the same Bogdanov, went to those elections with the idea of ​​Russia joining the European Union. But then the idea was not appreciated in the presidential administration, and Sobchak’s campaign for the parliamentary elections was not agreed upon.

Moreover, today among the registered parties there is one that has the name “Against All”. It is listed in the Central Election Commission directory “Political Parties of Russia” for 2017. The chairman of the party is a certain Pavel Mikhalchenkov. The statutory goal is to fight for the return of the “Against all” column to the ballot. But the party is not yet represented in any of the subjects - neither in the regional nor in the local parliament. When asked by the site to comment on Sobchak’s nomination to the party, they said that they were not ready at the moment to answer whether Ksenia Sobchak could count on the party platform for her presidential nomination.

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Ksenia Sobchak will run for president of Russia from the Civil Initiative party. She announced this through her YouTube channel, speaking together with the party chairman, former Minister of Economy Andrei Nechaev.

The TV presenter said that her headquarters called for the unification of democratic forces in the elections. It was not possible to reach an agreement between the parties, so Sobchak will represent the democratic forces together with the “Civil Initiative”, which, in her opinion, corresponds to her ideas about freedom of speech and freedom of thought. At the end of the video, Nechaev presented Sobchak with a party badge and also received a gift - an “Against All” paper bracelet.

“For me, the main thing in these elections is to convey to citizens that there is an alternative to the current policy,” Andrei Nechaev told Novaya. — There are other options for socio-economic, foreign and domestic policies in all areas. It seems to me that Ksenia, with her media resources and her energy, will cope with the task of conveying this position. For Ksenia, the first advantage is that she needs to collect three times fewer signatures ( 100 is required for a party candidate, 300 for a self-nominated candidate. — Ed.). The second is our similar ideological views.

When the TV presenter just announced her intention to run for president, Nechaev wrote a post on his Facebook page that, in his opinion, Sobchak had no chance of being elected: “I think the nomination to the highest post of a person who has not worked in recent years politics and did not participate in any elections, at least raising questions.”

— Yes, I even wrote a post on social networks that it is important for me that our candidate (in this case Ksenia) identifies with our program, our position, the values ​​that we defend. I, of course, had a certain skepticism due to the fact that Ksenia had not been involved in politics for the last year or two. This is partly understandable - because after all, she became a mother. But then we negotiated, got to know each other better, and all the rough edges were basically eliminated,” concludes Nechaev.

Political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky believes that the Sobchak-Nechaev political alliance is a “purely pragmatic decision”:

— Nechaev, with all due respect, is not an iconic figure. It can be assumed that by doing so, Sobchak’s headquarters continues to assemble its political ikebana from the petals of all the withered roses of the old democracy over the past 30 years. Then perhaps Nechaev is important here as one of Gaidar’s former ministers. But she just had to choose someone to go from the party, and this choice could be quite random.

“No one knows anything about the “Civil Initiative” now,” notes political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin. - This is the lucky chance that came to Andrei Nechaev. It was completely unclear who needed this party and why, and finally it came in handy. Nechaev is a wonderful person, without any possibility of real political rivalry. And here he can also help Sobchak reduce the number of signatures collected by three times. This is the right tactical move.

It is known that Sobchak negotiated with PARNAS, and also personally discussed her candidacy from the party with Mikhail Kasyanov. On November 13, PARNAS issued an appeal to Ksenia Sobchak, Grigory Yavlinsky and Alexei Navalny with a call to go to the polls as a united democratic coalition.

“Since no one responded to our initiative in essence, the political meaning in the nomination of Ksenia Sobchak thereby disappeared,” deputy chairman of PARNAS Konstantin Merzlikin told Novaya. — Because it is obvious that no single structure for participation in elections can be achieved. It is most likely that Navalny will not register in the elections - he will call on everyone to boycott. And Grigory Yavlinsky and Ksenia Sobchak will urge you to participate in the elections and vote for each of them. In this situation, we do not see any political sense for us to nominate Ksenia Anatolyevna.

PARNAS did not work out with Sobchak’s headquarters also because the image of Kasyanov’s party would not suit the TV presenter’s supporters, Pavlovsky believes:

— PARNAS would cut off a significant part of the environment, which in general can be called “liberal Rublyovka.” Which, on the one hand, is liberal, and on the other, is accustomed to comfort and cooperation with the authorities and does not want sudden movements. The core of Sobchak voters is the people of Rublyovka.

“Those who can vote for it are more likely to be critical of PARNAS, as well as of Yabloko,” says Oreshkin. “She might as well go to Yabloko for help.” Yabloko, of course, would not have nominated her, because there is Yavlinsky. Besides, of course, as a reasonable person, she did not want to get involved with Kasyanov. Because Kasyanov will immediately set the terms of cooperation, but Nechaev will not set anything, because he initially has the wrong position.

Ksenia Sobchak's candidacy for president is the most unexpected in the upcoming elections. Everyone is used to seeing her exclusively in the role of a socialite and scandalous show business star. In recent years, she has been mostly involved in social activities and journalism, moving further and further away from television. What can Ksenia offer as a candidate in the elections?

Registration with the CEC

Ksenia Anatolyevna is officially registered for the presidential elections on February 8th of this year. She entered the race from the “Civil Initiative” party, with which she was not previously associated - she joined it only in December 2017.

Sobchak was the second to last of all the candidates to reveal the information that she was running for president.

Biography

Ksenia Sobchak with her husband, actor Maxim Vitorgan.

Sobchak is the youngest presidential candidate of the Russian Federation. She was born in 1981 to the famous St. Petersburg lawyer Anatoly Sobchak and history teacher Lyudmila Narusova. Her parents cared about her daughter’s education, so she not only studied ballet at the Mariinsky Theater itself, but also studied painting at the Hermitage.

She received her secondary education at Herzen University, with the highest grades in literature. In 1998, she began her studies at St. Petersburg State University, but, having moved to the capital in 2000, she transferred to MGIMO. Her specialty is political science.

She began her career on TV immediately after graduating from college with the most significant scandalous TV show in her life, “Dom-2.” From that time on, for several years in a row, she played the role of a spoiled, glamorous and rather shocking girl who loves to cause scandals with her colleagues.

By 2011, she began to increasingly move away from the negative image, gradually joining the socio-political life of Russia.

1. She supported rallies and protests on Bolotnaya Square.
2. She gave a speech at the rally on Academician Sakharov Avenue.
3. She appeared at the “For Fair Elections” protests on Novy Arbat.
4. She visited the opposition camp on Chistoprudny, where she was detained with Alexei Navalny.

Participation in mass unrest affected the star’s television career. In 2012, she began hosting two shows touching on politics at once - “Sobchak Live” and “State Department with Ksenia Sobchak.” After speaking at rallies, she began to be excluded from leading important events like the Muz-TV Awards.

In the summer of 2012, the apartment of the future presidential candidate 2018 was searched - the Investigative Committee was sure that one of the leaders of the opposition movement, Ilya Yashin, lived there. At the same time, a large amount of money was seized, which was returned to Ksenia only in the fall.

Since 2013, Ksenia has been living in an officially registered marriage with Maxim Vitorgan. In 2016, she gave birth to a son, Plato.

Political activity

Civic activity for Sobchak was not in vain.

In 12, Ksenia ran for the Coordination Council of the Russian Opposition. She lost to three candidates at once, although she received more than 32 thousand votes.

After that, Ksenia Sobchak became quiet, until in 2017 they started talking about elections. Immediately after many media outlets wrote about the possible nomination of this journalist, she was criticized not only by some competitors in the race, but also by the opposition, and in particular by Alexei Navalny.

Sobchak herself presents herself in the elections as a person from the opposition. Previously, she supported the nomination of Navalny as an opposition candidate and said that she would withdraw her candidacy if he was allowed to participate in the elections.

President Vladimir Putin and his press secretary Dmitry Peskov spoke approvingly of Sobchak. She has every right to stand as a full citizen of the Russian Federation.

Some political scientists and political figures believe that the journalist is somehow connected with the current government and specifically with Putin, so they do not trust her too much as a candidate. On the Internet, the nomination of the TV presenter raised a wave of jokes about her TV show.

Election program

Sobchak is running for election as an opposition candidate.

Ksenia Anatolyevna adheres to purely liberal views. Her program “123 Difficult Steps” consists of the same number of theses on reforms affecting almost every sphere of life in our country.

The basis of Sobchak’s program in the presidential elections is to borrow a political model from European countries and maintain friendship with Europe.

Here are some points:

• establishing good neighborly relations with other countries;
• the revival of democracy in Russia;
• limitation of power among many senior officials with tougher responsibilities;
• establishing a system capable of maintaining normal turnover of power;
• rejection of propaganda and expansion of freedom of speech;
• regional development;
• reforms in the judicial system for the competent execution of laws;
• expanding freedoms for entrepreneurship;
• redistribution of the country's budget;
• reforms in the tax system;
• improvement of the pension system;
• a course towards more thoughtful education, in which more than 5% of the budget will be invested;
• supporting freedom of opinion and combating discrimination;
• transition to environmentally friendly transport and green energy;
• healthcare reforms;
• fight against HIV;
• exit from political isolation;
• fulfillment of international obligations to lift sanctions;
• ending wars and withdrawing troops.

At first, Ksenia Sobchak presented herself as a candidate against all contenders for the presidency. Her slogan is “Against everyone!” showed the need for a column of the same name in the ballot. The nomination itself means that there is no person capable of leading the country.

Chances of winning the elections

Will Ksenia Sobchak really be the new president of the Russian Federation? It’s impossible to say for sure, but according to polls, in the current race she is in third place after Grudinin and Putin.

The name Sobchak appears very often in comments, unlike half of the contenders for the post of head of state. Many reviews in her direction are unflattering, but the girl still has a chance to get this chair.

Video: Vladimir Solovyov about Sobchak’s election program.