A Russian court has the appeal Putin’s rival Nadezhdin rejected his exclusion from the presidential election – for the third time. Nadezhdin announced another appeal against the verdict.
The liberal opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin says he has suffered another defeat in his attempt to run for president in Russia. “The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected my application to challenge the refusal to register,” Nadezhdin said in online services.
The Supreme Court had already rejected Nadezhdin’s two previous appeals against the election commission’s decision. The opposition politician announced that he would appeal the decision.
Commission complains about invalid signatures
During the election campaign, Nadezhdin called for an end to the conflict in Ukraine. Thousands of Russians had signed petitions to support Nadezhdin’s candidacy. Such support for an opposition candidate in Russia is unusual.
Nadezhdin, a lawmaker in a town near Moscow, submitted 105,000 signatures to the election commission. The Russian election commission ruled that more than 9,000 of them were invalid. Russian election rules stipulate that a maximum of five percent of signatures in favor of a potential presidential candidate can be found invalid.
Hardly any competition for Putin
Incumbent Vladimir Putin is expected to win the presidential election in mid-March. Putin has led Russia as president or prime minister for more than 20 years. There is no real opposition in the election. Much of the opposition is in prison or in exile; last week the prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny died in custody.