Andrei Vladimirovich Bogdanov

Andrey Vladimirovich Bogdanov (Russian Андре́й Влади́мирович Богда́нов) (born January 27, 1970 in Mozhaysk) is a Russian politician. He is the leader of the Democratic Party of Russia and a Freemason, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia.^[1][2] As a candidate for the 2008 presidential election, he received 968,344 votes or 1.30% of the Russian electorate.

Bogdanov began his political career in 1990, when he joined the Democratic Party of Russia. He ascended to the leadership of the party in 2005, after he was elected at the 19th party congress.^[3]

Russian president Putin described Bogdanov as "an ambitious young man with progressive views".^{[citation needed]} During his presidential campaign, in 2008, he showed support for Russian integration with Europe and for less state involvement in the economy.^[4] Regarding his candidacy, the British newspaper Times Online put forward suspicions that Bogdanov could be a puppet candidate used by the government to make the elections look legitimate.^[5] He dismissed these claims as "fantasies".^[1]

In November 2008, the Democratic Party of Russia was disbanded and its followers joined the ranks of the new party Right Cause, which united the supporters of the right-wing West-oriented liberalism. At the same time Bogdanov founded the Andrei Bogdanov Centre, an independent non-profit organization for the development of social technologies, which in many respects became a successor to the Democratic Party.^[6]

Bogdanov entered the race for the mayorship of Sochi on 25 March 2009,^[7] however he pulled out of the race on 13 April 2009, urging his supporters to vote for acting mayor Anatoly Pakhomov^[8]

The election of Bogdanov as the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia entailed the schism of 2007, when a large group of members did not accept the results of elections and organized an alternative United Grand Lodge of Russia. His mixing of masonry with politics was customarily referred to by his opponents as the main reason for the schism. Indeed, all the members of Bogdanov’s team in the leadership of the Grand Lodge were also members of the Democratic Party of Russia. Bogdanov’s opponents stated that with his leadership, the control over the Grand Lodge was taken over by the politicians of one party, which damaged the image of both masonry and Bogdanov himself.^[9]

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