- Sputnik International
Russia
The latest news and stories from Russia. Stay tuned for updates and breaking news on defense, politics, economy and more.

Kasyanov 'barred' from Russian presidential race

Subscribe
Russia's election authorities said on Thursday that they had grounds for refusing ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov registration as a candidate for the March 2 presidential polls.
MOSCOW, January 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's election authorities said on Thursday that they had grounds for refusing ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov registration as a candidate for the March 2 presidential polls.

"During an inspection of the list of signatures gathered in support of ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov, we have discovered 80,261 fraudulent signatures, which is 13.38% out of the total," said Nikolai Konkin, secretary of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

"Therefore, the total of legitimate signatures (1,983,405) is less than the required 2 million, which is grounds for a refusal to register the candidate," he said.

Under Russian law, a presidential candidate has to collect at least 2 million signatures in his or her support, and can be denied registration if more than 5% of the signatures are found to be invalid or false.

On Tuesday, after checking the first batch of signatures backing Kasyanov, a Central Election Commission working group found 15.57% of the total to be invalid. A fraud case was launched the same day, and a subsequent additional check on a further batch of signatures begun.

Kasyanov's press secretary, Yelena Dikun, said that Kasyanov would contest the CEC's findings. Kasyanov's support team has also described the forgery claims as "political pressure."

Mikhail Kasyanov was prime minister during Putin's first term, but was dismissed in 2004. Commonly known in Russia as "Misha two-percent," a reference to bribery allegations concerning his time in office, Kasyanov is heavily associated with the Yeltsin years, which saw widespread hardship in Russia, and has little popular support. Misha is the diminutive version of the Russian name Mikhail.

The CEC has so far registered three candidates for the March 2 presidential elections: First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, and the Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Medvedev, who has been publicly backed by President Putin, is the clear front-runner.

However, a report in Russia's Vedomosti business daily on Wednesday reported that Zyuganov was considering pulling out of the polls in protest at what he said was Kremlin manipulation of the election campaign.

If the 63-year-old Communist leader was to indeed withdraw from the race for the presidency, the Kremlin's only opponent at the elections would be the outspoken and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Another nominee, Andrei Bogdanov, the leader of the tiny Democratic Party, was also experiencing some problems with election officials, but the party's press service reported that the amount of 'fake' signatures discovered was so far less than 5%.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала