The Central Election Commission has not yet made a decision on the number of candidates for the presidency of Russia – Kommersant

The head of the Central Election Commission of Russia (CEC), Ella Pamfilova, said that a final decision on the number of candidates for the presidential elections in Russia has not been made. Earlier, Evgeniy Kolyushin, a member of the Central Election Commission from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said at the party secretariat that there would be only four candidates on the ballot.

“The CEC has not yet made any official decision. This is his (Evgenia Kolyushina.— “Ъ”) private guess. The work process of discussing the results of signature verification with representatives of candidates is underway,” said Ella Pamfilova (quoted by TASS).

The CEC has already registered four candidates for the upcoming presidential elections: Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), Nikolai Kharitonov (KPRF), Vladislav Davankov (New People) and Vladimir Putin (self-nominated). At the moment, the fate of candidates Boris Nadezhdin (Civil Initiative) and Sergei Malinkovich (Communists of Russia) has not yet been decided – signatures are being verified. Self-nominees of the Russian Rada and Anatoly Batashev were also not denied registration.

Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev said that the Central Election Commission found errors that “cause surprise” in the signature sheets submitted by Boris Nadezhdin and Sergei Malinkovich. The final decision on the registration of the remaining candidates is the commission will accept at the meeting on February 7. According to information from the authorized representative of Mr. Nadezhdin, Igor Artemyev, the CEC found 15.348% of defects in the collected signatures. A 5% defect rate is sufficient to refuse registration. Boris Nadezhdin himself stated that he intends to challenge the commission’s decision in the Supreme Court.

January 31 from the election race got off Andrey Bogdanov (Russian Freedom and Justice Party), and on January 30 – Sergey Baburin (“Russian All-People’s Union”). Self-nominated Anatoly Batashev brought five boxes of signatures to the CEC, admitted that this was not enough, but left the decision to the commission. The self-nominated Rada of Russians presented to the Central Election Commission only 417 signatures instead of 300 thousand. Irina Sviridova, nominated from the non-parliamentary Democratic Party of Russia, did not collect the required 100 thousand signatures.

Read more about the presidential election campaign in the material “And there are six of them left”.

Alexandra Goroshilova