People's Democratic Union leader Mikhail Kasyanov
Photo: Àíäðåé Ìàõîíèí
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Kasyanov Refused Candidacy by CEC
There will be four candidates in the March 2 presidential election in Russia. They are United Russia's candidate Dmitry Medvedev, Communist Gennady Zyuganov, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and democrat Andrey Bogdanov. The final list of candidates was issued by the Central Elections Commission yesterday. Mikhail Kasyanov, leader of the People's Democratic Union was denied registration as a candidate. CEC member Elvira Ermakova stated repeatedly that the commission “treated all candidates the same” as she reported that 13.36 percent of the signatures in Kasyanov's support were invalid, exceeding the limit set of 5 percent. She admitted that most of the violations were minor – the name of the region was indicated incorrectly or the petition compiler was improperly indicated, etc.
Kasyanov's campaign manager Konstantin Merzlikin said before the commission voted on his candidate's registration that he would appeal to the Supreme Court if the registration was denied. The commission voted unanimously to refuse registration and decided to hand material on falsified signatures in Kasyanov's petitions and in those of candidate Bogdanov to the Prosecutor General's Office.
Kasyanov stated that he has not yet decided whether he will file suit in the Supreme Court. He said that there would not be any “open political battle” between himself and “Putin-Medvedev.” He added that he was certain that the Russian president had decided against his registration as a candidate personally and called the other candidates “marionettes.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 28, 2008
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