Anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin has been barred from standing in Russia’s presidential election next month, in a move that further clears the country’s political landscape of opponents to Vladimir Putin.
The decision was made during a ruling on Thursday by the Central Election Committee (CEC) of Russia, the body tasked with registering and verifying potential candidates.
According to the CEC, Nadezhdin only collected 95,587 legitimate signatures, 5,000 short of 100,000 benchmark.
Nadezhdin has disputed the CEC claims regarding the signatures and said he will appeal the refusal of his registration to the Supreme Court. He also said he would dispute the committee’s regulations.
“No one has any doubt that hundreds of thousands of people really signed for me. There is no doubt about it,” Nadezhdin said following the ruling. “We will appeal the regulations and the collection procedure itself.”
But the move indicates that he will join a number of anti-war activists to be isolated from Russia’s political scene, as Moscow prepares for a presidential election that international observers consider a mere formality.
