Nadezhdin, a local legislator in a town near Moscow, was required by law to gather at least 100,000 signatures in support of his candidacy.
Russia’s main election authority has declared more than 9,000 signatures submitted by presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin’s campaign invalid, which was said to be enough to disqualify him.
Nadezhdin, a local legislator in a town near Moscow, was required by law to gather at least 100,000 signatures in support of his candidacy.
According to the Central Election Commission, Russia’s election rules say potential candidates can have no more than 5% of their submitted signatures thrown out.
AP reports that the development is aimed at not allowing a politician opposing Moscow’s military action in Ukraine on the ballot for the upcoming presidential election.
Nadezhdin, while speaking at the Election Commission on Thursday, asked election authorities to postpone the decision and to give him more time to rebut their arguments, but they declined. The politician said he would challenge his disqualification in court.
“It’s not me standing here,” Nadezhdin said. “Hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who put their signatures down for me are behind me.”
Nadezhdin had openly called for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine and for starting a dialogue with the West. Thousands of Russians lined up across the country last month to sign papers in support of his candidacy, an unusual show of opposition sympathies in the country’s rigidly controlled political landscape.
He had collected more than the 100,000 signatures required to challenge Vladimir Putin in March presidential elections.
Supporters of Boris Nadezhdin, a member of the Civic Initiative party, braved freezing temperatures at times in long lines to add their names to his campaign application. While Russian authorities didn’t prevent the initiative, election officials must now approve the list of signatures and could deny Nadezhdin a place on the ballot.
Russia’s election commission had formally registered President Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the March presidential election, a vote in which he’s all but certain to win another six-year term in office.
Putin, 71, is running as an independent, but he retains tight control over Russia’s political system that he has established during 24 years in power. With prominent critics who could challenge him either jailed or living abroad and most independent media banned, his re-election in the March 15-17 presidential vote looks all but assured.
Exiled opposition activists threw their weight behind Nadezhdin last month, urging their supporters to sign his nomination petitions.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the Kremlin doesn’t view Nadezhin as “a rival” for the incumbent president.
A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine is rejected as a presidential candidate
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