In Russia, opposition filed application with CEC demanding to deny Putin's registration

22.01.2024 22:33

Ukrinform

A group of Russian opposition politicians and public figures have filed a statement with the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) demanding that candidate Vladimir Putin be denied registration for the presidency of the Russian Federation due to "numerous violations of the law."

This was reported by Ukrinform with reference to a message on the Telegram channel of the public "Committee 2024", which also published the text of the statement.

The authors of the statement, the head of the Committee 2024 Association Sergei Antonov, electoral lawyer Vladimir Shveda, and former Moscow municipal deputy Denis Shenderovich, point to two serious grounds for refusing to register Vladimir Putin.

The first reason is that Putin is not eligible for the 3rd consecutive presidential term and the 5th term in total. This is argued by the fact that the 2020 "zeroing" procedure, which consisted of amending the Constitution of the Russian Federation, was carried out with serious violations.

The second reason is massive violations of electoral law recorded during the collection of signatures in support of Putin. It is noted that as of today, 219 complaints of violations in 67 regions have been filed with the CEC at the initiative of the Committee 2024 Association. Typical violations: signatures for Putin are collected by representatives of state and municipal authorities, management of budgetary institutions and enterprises belonging to state corporations. At the same time, these individuals are illegally campaigning for the current president of the Russian Federation. Each of the 219 complaints contains specific facts and evidence of violations of the law in favor of Putin. Activists estimate that in these cases alone, the Russian dictator received about 60,000 signatures that should be invalidated."

The list of politicians and public figures who signed the statement to the CEC RF includes 26 people. Among them are: former deputy of the St. Petersburg City Council Maxim Reznik; member of the Executive Council of the Congress of People's Deputies, former deputy of the State Duma of Russia Ilya Ponomarev; well-known political strategist and gallery owner Marat Gelman; Prime Minister of the Government of Independent Tatarstan in Exile Rafis Kashapov; politician, businessman, member of the Board of the Committee 2024 Association Vitaly Ginzburg; former deputy of the State Duma of Russia Alexander Osovtsov and others.

As Ukrinform reported, in mid-December in Moscow, an initiative group of voters supported the candidacy of Vladimir Putin as a self-nominated candidate in the "presidential elections" in Russia to be held in March 2024. After that, the collection of signatures for Putin began.

Before that, the Russian CEC decided to hold the "presidential election" within three days - from March 15 to 17, 2024.