The Central Election Commission approved the list of documents for nominating presidential candidates for the 2024 elections

The Central Election Commission (CEC) continues to actively prepare for the presidential elections. On Wednesday, he approved the list of documents that candidates will have to submit. Now, among other things, they will have to report that they are not citizens of another state and have never even had a residence permit there. In addition, the list of accountable property includes digital assets. But this restriction does not yet apply to bitcoins, the expert reassures.

The list of documents required for the nomination and registration of presidential candidates, approved at the Central Election Commission meeting on November 22, turned out to be very voluminous. It contains almost one and a half hundred sheets and includes 58 forms that candidates will need to fill out both for themselves and for their nominated representatives, proxies and members of election commissions. “Everything that can be done must be done now – before the official announcement,” explained the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova. “This is the groundwork, as soon as the presidential campaign starts, we have everything ready.” She also advised parties that are going to nominate candidates to monitor this work.

The new list largely repeats a similar list that the CEC adopted before the 2018 campaign, but there are also differences. For example, filling out documents in machine-readable form is no longer recommended, but is mandatory. The Federal Information Center under the Central Election Commission must submit a special program with the help of which candidates will do this by December 1, it will be available on the commission’s website.

As CEC member Yevgeny Shevchenko said, the authors of the document took into account all the latest legislative changes – in particular, amendments to the Constitution and 16 laws, including on presidential elections, on basic guarantees of voting rights and the Labor Code. So, Mr. Shevchenko recalled, according to the new edition of Art. 81 of the Constitution, the candidate in his statement of consent to run must confirm that he did not have and does not have citizenship of another state or a residence permit there. In addition, he is obliged to indicate the period of permanent residence on the territory of the Russian Federation, which, according to the new rules, must be at least 25 years (an exception is made only for immigrants from regions accepted into Russia).

Also, the CEC member continued, when submitting documents, candidates and parties must take into account the ban on participation in election-related activities of foreign citizens and stateless persons, foreign and international organizations, as well as “foreign agents.” Members of the initiative group for nominating a candidate, himself and those whom he will represent for appointment as proxies or members of election commissions, will be “rigorously” checked for compliance with such restrictions, Yevgeny Shevchenko promised. He also added that according to the new rules, a candidate who has a criminal record after submitting documents for registration is obliged to notify the commission about this no later than 18:00 the next day.

The list of information about candidates’ property, income and expenses has also been updated. Now they will have to report not only on real estate, vehicles, accounts and shares, but also on digital financial assets and digital currency. Let us recall that in 2021, the Central Election Commission removed more than two dozen candidates from the State Duma elections on the basis of information about the presence of foreign financial assets – we were talking about shares, including Russian companies, but issued by foreign issuers.

The law on digital assets was adopted relatively recently, recalls Garegin Mitin, a partner at the T&M consulting bureau, but the digital ruble is already included in the so-called presidential certificates (forms for officials reporting income and expenses). However, digital currency is still a rather exotic type of asset, so it is unlikely that ownership of it will become an obstacle for any of the candidates, the expert suggests. But bitcoins are still not prohibited for them: there is no ban on cryptocurrencies, since they are not formalized in Russian law, explains Mr. Mitin.

Anastasia Kornya