Konstantin Titov. 2004 presidential campaign Khakamada was one of the leaders of the Union of Rightist Forces when she decided to run in the 2004 Russian presidential election. She was not supported by her party, which had decided that they would not nominate a candidate. She announced her candidacy in December 2003. Khakamada kicked off her campaign by delivering a speech which placed the blame for the Moscow theater hostage crisis at Putin's feet. She entered the election with better name recognition than most of the other candidates challenging Putin. Her candidacy was officially registered on 8 February. Khakamada was only the second woman to be a registered candidate in a Russian presidential election, after only Ella Pamfilova in 2000. Khakamada claimed her motivation for running was her desire to see a liberal opposition candidate. She would ultimately be the only liberal opposition candidate to run. In an article published in Novaya Gazeta, Yulia Latynina alleged that Khakamada only entered the election to feign a role of a democratic opponent to provide more legitimacy to the election of Vladimir Putin. Khakamada denied such allegations. Khakamada's campaign slogan was “Irina Khakamada: Our Voice”. Her campaign received funding from Boris Nevzlin, a former Yukos chief who was being targeted for international investigation by Russian authorities and was residing in Israel during the campaign. She was outspoken about unfair conditions of the election, particularly about its media coverage. Early into the campaign, analysts predicted that she might be able to receive more than 10% of the vote. Khakamada received 3.9% of votes. While she declared that she found her performance in the election to have been, "satisfactory", she alleged that there had been many irregularities with the vote. Subsequent political activities (2004– present) After the election Khakamada founded a new political party named Our Choice. Since 2004, the chairman of the Party reorganized into the "Our Choice Interregional Public Fund for Social Solidarity", which in 2006 became part of the Russian People’s Democratic Union (RNDS) political party, led by Mikhail Kasyanov and her. Khakamada published the book "Gender in big-time politics" describing her personal experience of work in Kremlin. On June 11, 2006, Boris Berezovsky, fugitive from the Russian justice system, said Boris Nemtsov received word from Khakamada that Putin threatened her and like-minded colleagues in person. According to Berezovsky, Putin had issued threats that Khakamada and her colleagues "will take in the