Boris Nadeshtin, Putin's main opponent in the Russian presidential election, will know today whether his run for the Kremlin is over before it began. Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) will announce whether Nadeshti's candidacy is accepted or not.
This Monday, a working group of the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) recommended that Nadezhdin not be accepted as a candidate.
According to the organization, the defect rate was found to be 15.4% of the signatures provided in support of Nadeshtin's candidacy. According to Russian law, only applications with up to 5% of the total number of incorrect signatures are accepted.
The commission will announce the final decision on Wednesday, but it is expected to be a 'prelude' to the candidacy of Putin's opponent, who has already vowed to contest the CEC task force's decision.
“We need to contest approximately 4,500 signatures out of the 9,209 declared invalid,” he wrote on social media. “If the Central Election Commission rejects my nomination, I will appeal the verdict in the Supreme Court,” Nadeshtin announced.
According to Russian election law, potential presidential candidates from a party not represented in parliament must collect at least 100,000 signatures from people who support the project. Nadezhdin gathered about 200 thousand people and eventually gave the CEC close to 105,000, the maximum allowed by law.
The disqualification of the most Putin-facing candidate follows a pattern of other Russian election operations in recent years.
There have been several cases of alleged forgery of signatures or discrepancies with government records, often out of date, that prevent opposition candidates from contesting.