Who is Ekaterina Duntsova – a candidate for the Russian presidency?

Four months before the Russian presidential election, three self-nominated candidates have declared their desire to challenge Vladimir Putin – while he has not yet announced that he is going to run for the presidency for the fifth time. One of these candidates is Ekaterina Duntsova, an activist, journalist and former deputy from the city of Rzhev in the Tver region.

“Every day the life of ordinary Russians is becoming more difficult. Citizens cannot freely express their opinion if it does not coincide with the position of the authorities; the number of political prisoners is growing, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced out of the country. In fact, local self-government has been destroyed, and one man [Vladimir Putin] decides everything in a huge state. “Military operations” on the territory of neighboring states lead to imminent isolation and degradation. Iran, North Korea and Eritrea remain the last allies, but soon they too may turn away”, Duntsova's campaign website says.

REM has compiled a profile of Duntsova showing that she is not new to politics, and that she has well-established beliefs she intends to convey to the Russian voters regardless of whether she is able to become a registered candidate for the Russian presidency.

JOURNALIST AND ACTIVIST

A mother of three, 40-year-old Ekaterina Duntsova lives in Rzhev (55,000 inhabitants), the second largest city in the Tver region bordering the Moscow region. She is originally from Krasnoyarsk, one of the largest cities in Russia, which is located in Eastern Siberia. She moved to the central part of the country in the early 2000s. In 2008, Duntsova graduated from the Law Faculty of Tver State University. In 2016, she graduated from the directing department of the St. Petersburg University of Cinema and Television.

Ekaterina Duntsova with her children, November 2023, Mother's Day in Russia. Source: https://t.me/Duntsova/18

Since 2003, Ekaterina Duntsova has worked as a journalist. Then she became a correspondent for the TV channel “TK Rzhev” (originally founded as an independent company, it later became controlled by the city mayor's office) – “the mouthpiece of power”, as Duntsova defined it in her interview to ”Rzhevskaya Pravda” in 2016. Three years later, Duntsova left the channel to work as editor-in-chief of Rzhevsk independent TV channel “RiT”.

In 2016, Duntsova joined the search party “Sova” as coordinator. Volunteers of this organization support the search for missing children and adults.

Duntsova giving a class for volunteers of “Sova”, September 2023. Source: https://vk.com/poisk_rzhev

That’s how she explained her motivation to take part in the activities of the search party: “Almost everyone I know scolds or even condemns my work in the search party. I'm a mother of three children, I'm an independent media journalist, a civic activist and so much more. I have several jobs, and I constantly owe someone something. In the search party, however, there is always a clear mission. There are no abstract concepts. Roles in the team are clearly assigned. This is what I miss in my otherwise chaotic life. And it helps me to find peace in my everyday life”.

PROTEST LEADER

In 2011, the Rzhev City Duma decided to cancel the direct mayoral elections.

Duntsova recollects that over 500 residents of Rzhev who disagreed with this decision came to the meeting of deputies. However, they were not allowed into the building due to overcrowding. On the same day, single-person protests took place in the city, and some streets were blocked by the citizens. Despite the protests, the deputies didn’t change their decision.

Here’s what Ekaterina said about the beginning of these protests: “Since 2011, Rzhev faced a crisis of power. [lt]...[gt] One head [of the city] replaced another one in lightning speed. In six years we have had six or seven mayors”.

Duntsova, dissatisfied with the situation, launched an initiative group for the return of direct mayoral elections. This campaign did not help to bring back the direct elections, but introduced Duntsova into politics.

Duntsova leading the citizen initiative for the return of mayoral elections. Source: https://vk.com/wall-28137703_33165

Ekaterina Duntsova and her supporters have tried to return the direct mayoral elections in various ways, also through legal action. In 2018, she filed a lawsuit against the Tver region's Legislative Assembly for refusing to bring up this issue for discussion. The courts of first and second instance rejected the activist's claim, and in 2019 Duntsova received a rejection from the last instance in the country – the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

DEPUTY

In order to personally participate in decision-making processes in Rzhev, Ekaterina Duntsova decided to become a deputy of the City Duma. In 2014, she went to the polls for the first time with a promise to return the right to choose the mayor to the citizens.

Duntsova has lost the campaign of 2014. But in 2019 she succeeded in becoming a deputy of the Rzhev City Duma. Duntsova wanted to replace the United Russia candidate, unarmed self-defense coach Alexander Obraztsov. In her opinion, he was just “sitting out” in the City Duma for several terms in a row.

“Even without deputy status I consider myself an active, civic-minded person. But the deputy status provides an opportunity to have a say in important decisions on the city level and to express the interests of people who do not belong to party associations – I ran as a self-nominated candidate”, explained Duntsova.

After the elections Ekaterina Duntsova withdrew from the active struggle for the return of direct mayoral elections in Rzhev. She had the feeling that the deputies would not support the idea of creating a working group on this issue. However, she stated that she was ready to support the initiative of citizens, should such an initiative appear. The citizens did not show any initiative in this question.

As a deputy Duntsova was engaged in solving everyday problems of voters: she supervised the reconditioning of roads, tried to solve problems with drinking water, built up the dialogue between homeowners and property management companies, and sought to preserve the historical center of Rzhev.

Ekaterina Duntsova at the public lecture “Zhivoye slovo”, November 2023. Source: https://t.me/Duntsova/12

This is not to say that Duntsova was a fierce opponent of United Russia. The article by Agentstvo stated that since 2016 she had been supporting the member of United Russia Roman Krylov – a former deputy of the regional legislative assembly, former mayor of Rzhev and current head of the Rzhev municipal district. She voted in favor of his nomination to the legislative assembly during the United Russia primaries and later, already being a deputy, supported his candidacy for the city mayor. Ekaterina explained her support for Krylov by the fact that at the local level competence and cooperation between different parties are more important than political affiliations.

As a municipal deputy, Duntsova participated in the Zemsky Congress in 2021, an assembly of independent municipal deputies from Russian regions that promotes the ideas of strong local self-government. The congress in Novgorod was interrupted by police officers demanding to stop the event. A few months earlier, Duntsova was detained together with 190 other participants of the Municipal Russia Forum in Moscow aimed at supporting independent deputies in their current work and in preparation for their re-election campaigns. Law enforcers explained these detentions with violations of sanitary and epidemiological norms due to coronavirus pandemic.

Duntsova's deputy career came to an abrupt end in 2022, when the Rzhev City Duma voted in favor of uniting the city of Rzhev and the Rzhev district into a single municipality, announcing its self-dissolution straight after the voting. Duntsova opposed both the unification and self-dissolution but was forced to resign as municipal deputy.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

After the self-dissolution of the Rzhev City Duma, Ekaterina Duntsova claims to have continued her work as a journalist: she anonymously wrote for some publications. Apart from that, she kept her role in the search party “Sova”.

On November 18, 2023, Duntsova announced in her social networks that she wants to become a candidate for the 2024 presidential election. She explained her desire to participate in the presidential campaign by the fact that “for the last decade the country has been moving in the wrong direction: the course taken does not lead to development, but to self-destruction”.

In an interview with 7x7, Ekaterina said that she wants to give voters an alternative to Vladimir Putin, especially at a time when many opposition movements and politicians have emigrated because of the war in Ukraine.

Ekaterina is going to the elections as a democratic candidate: she stands for the ceasefire in Ukraine, democratic reforms, and the release of political prisoners.

Duntsova counts on support from the opposition both in Russia and abroad. She considers her voters to be “thinking, creative and active people who want to live in a democratic country”. On the day of her nomination Ekaterina was supported by "Nash Shtab", an initiative launched by activists of the anti-war project "Kovcheg" aimed at promoting anti-war candidates.

On November 20, Ekaterina received a call from the prosecutor's office. She was asked to comment on the publication about her nomination for the elections and on her attitude to the war in Ukraine. After this call Duntsova confirmed in writing that the page in the Russian social network VKontakte with the publication about the nomination belonged to her.

Ten days after the announcement of Duntsova's desire to participate in the election, more than 40,000 people expressed their willingness to sign in support of her nomination.