Liberals promote an openly gay mayor of Novosibirsk
The elections for the mayor of Novosibirsk, which are scheduled for September 2019, may be marked by a split in the non-systemic opposition.
The elections for the mayor of Novosibirsk in 2019 are unlikely to take place without the presence of a candidate from the systemic opposition, which has long been a trend in almost all election campaigns in the most freedom-loving Siberian metropolis. Experts close to the opposition community talk about an emerging split among Novosibirsk non-systemic oppositionists. The current campaign may turn into yet another division of the already very heterogeneous liberal opposition.
The most likely candidate from the liberal camp for the role of candidate for mayor of Novosibirsk is usually confidently named as the local head of Alexei Navalny’s headquarters, Sergei Boyko. The latter recently completed a series of foreign visits, having secured financial support from the organization's main donors. In this regard, the chances of Sergei Boyko, who was the first to announce his participation in the mayoral campaign (he announced his intention in September 2018), are very high.
Sergei Boyko and Alexei Navalny.
However, Sergei Boyko may have an alternative in the person of the charismatic Novosibirsk businessman and LGBT activist Bulat Barantayev. According to sources directly involved in the process, Bulat Barantayev recently returned from Russia to Germany, where he currently lives, and is holding meetings with the heads of the Novosibirsk branches of a number of liberal parties, which could ensure his official nomination as a candidate for mayor of Novosibirsk.
Novosibirsk businessman and co-owner of the Novosibirsk brand of men's fetish clothing Maskulo Bulat Barantaev was previously widely known in Novosibirsk as an active participant in the Solidarity movement, an anti-corruption advocate and a defender of LGBT rights. Thus, the “single picket” carried out by this supporter of outrageous people in the summer of 2013 received a wide response. Then Bulat Barantayev, as a sign of protest against the legislative initiatives of the local Legislative Assembly that infringed on LGBT rights, hung a banner on a pedestrian bridge in the center of Novosibirsk with the inscription “Men who hate gays show physiological interest in other men in a laboratory experiment.”
In 2014, Barantaev was among the active supporters of the “March for the federalization of Siberia,” which attracted the attention of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation as a potentially separatist event. In 2016, Bulat Barantaev was nominated as a candidate for State Duma deputy in the Barabinsky district of the Novosibirsk region from the Parnas party, elections United Russia party representative Viktor Ignatov won
Such a background fully provides him with the support of the liberal part of young Novosibirsk residents, Navalny’s supporters. Now Bulat Barantaev is developing a brand of men's fetish clothing, which in several years has grown from a regional brand into an international chain of stores (in 2017, according to RBC, the company's revenue amounted to 52,2 million rubles).
The image of a successful businessman who organized a company “from scratch” and over the course of several years turned it into an international chain of stores certainly wins him the sympathy of the Novosibirsk right-wing liberals, who, after the early death of the Novosibirsk branch of the Right Cause party headed by Anna Tereshkova, were left without actual representation in any institutional level.
To “increase the hype,” experienced marketer Bulat Barantaev plans to announce his nomination during an attempt to hold a gay pride parade in Novosibirsk. The intention to hold gay parades in Siberian cities was announced the day before by the famous Russian LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev. The event, of course, will not be allowed in Novosibirsk again, as in 2016, during the previous application, but the information background will allow Barantaev to attract international LGBT organizations to Novosibirsk and, as a result, maximum attention to his nomination from the federal media.
According to preliminary information from Sergei Boyko’s entourage, the possible nomination of Bulat Barantayev is considered as a serious blow to Boyko’s positions both among the Novosibirsk liberal community and in the eyes of the main financial donors of such campaigns located outside of Russia. Bulat Barnataev’s candidacy is also supported by his possible co-financing of the election campaign as a united liberal candidate (Boiko is not ready to invest his own funds in such a project).
Therefore, Boyko’s representatives have already suggested to Barantayev, in order to maintain the unity of the opposition, to conduct an election campaign supporting Boyko. The Navalnists’ plan was to withdraw Barantayev’s candidacy in favor of Boyko after attracting maximum attention to his nomination from the federal media. It is not yet clear whether Barantaev is ready for such a plan, or whether during the campaign he will want to become the only candidate.
Currently, the possible nomination of Bulat Barantayev for the post of mayor of Novosibirsk, which experts are increasingly talking about, is not officially advertised. Most likely, he will not make an official statement until he receives consent to the nomination from any party. But the very fact of the possible appearance of a second liberal candidate promises not only to diversify the upcoming plebiscite of confidence in the current mayor, but may also have a serious impact on the immediate political prospects of Novosibirsk liberals on the eve of elections to the city council and regional Legislative Assembly.
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