Putin registered as candidate for Russian president

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has been registered as a candidate for the Russian presidential election scheduled for March 18, Russia's Central Elections Commission (CEC) said on Tuesday.

Putin's campaign collected more than 1.6 million signatures from voters. The number of invalid signatures was about 0.39 percent after the approval of the election committee.

So far, the CEC has registered only two candidates, who did not have to collect signatures as they represent parliamentary political parties. They are politician and entrepreneur Pavel Grudinin from the Russian Communist Party, and the leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Under Russian electoral law, candidates from non-parliamentary parties must collect signatures of more than 300,000 voters, of whom the number of invalid signatures must not exceed 5 percent.

Five more presidential contenders are awaiting the commission’s decision on registration. They are Grigory Yavlinsky (the Yabloko party), Boris Titov (the Party of Growth), Sergey Baburin (the Russian National Union party), Ksenia Sobchak (the Civil Initiative party) and Maxim Suraikin (the Communists of Russia).

In accordance with Russian law, the CEC has to finish the registration of the candidates by February 10.

It is widely expected that Putin will win by a landslide, as he enjoys a much higher approval rating than his rivals.

(Top image: File)