Russian anti-war presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin says he has been banned from running against Vladimir Putin in the carefully managed presidential elections in March.
Earlier on Thursday the central election commission (CEC) said it had found “irregularities” in over 9,000 of more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.
That figure was three times higher than the allowable 5% error rate and provides grounds for the commission to disqualify Nadezhdin.
CEC’s deputy chair Nikolai Bulaev said last week it had found 11 “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.
Why? Navalny is still alive. It’s not exactly hard to understand that making your prominent opposition figureheads martyrs is a dangerous game to play.
Navalny is only alive because Russia’s assassination attempt failed in spectacularly public fashion and it would be too obvious now. In this case it’s probably just not worth it if a clerical error can keep him in check. Jail or murder are never off the table under Putin’s regime if it starts to become the more expedient option.
I mean, the whole world saw the failed assassination attempt. There was no ambiguity about the circumstances of his poisoning. That happened during a period when Russians had full access to western media.