Putin’s rival disqualified from Russian presidential race

A former TV journalist, Ekaterina Duntsova, was disqualified on Saturday (23) to run against President Vladimir Putin in the Russian elections in March next year due to alleged flaws in her candidacy application.

The release of a video of an electoral commission meeting shows members unanimously voting to reject Duntsova’s candidacy, who wanted to run with a platform to end the war in Ukraine and free political prisoners.

Her disqualification was seen by Putin’s critics as proof that no one with genuine opposition opinions can run against him in the first presidential election since the start of the war in February 2022. Critics view the election as a sham with only one possible outcome.

For the Kremlin, Putin will win because he enjoys genuine support from the entire society, with approval ratings of around 80% in opinion polls.

Ella Pamfilova, the head of the electoral commission, offered words of consolation to Duntsova after her rejection. “You are a young woman, you have everything ahead of you. Any less can always turn into a plus. Any experience is still an experience,” she said.

Screenshots released by a Telegram channel representing Duntsova showed documents that the commission had highlighted as lacking proper signatures.

Duntsova, 40, told journalists that her team had put together the application hastily and had difficulty finding a lawyer to certify the candidacy, after dozens others refused.

She submitted the documents to the electoral commission less than 72 hours before being disqualified and was largely ignored by the pro-Kremlin state media, which also failed to report her disqualification.

When Duntsova said last month that she wanted to run, commentators described her as crazy, brave, or part of a Kremlin-scripted plan to create the appearance of competition.

“Any sensible person taking this step would be afraid, but fear cannot win,” she told Reuters news agency in November.

Abbas Galliamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter now labeled by authorities as a “foreign agent,” that is, an enemy, said that Putin did not want to risk the same scenario as Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The Belarus leader clung to power in 2020 with the help of what the opposition and Western governments said was an electoral fraud to allow him to claim victory over opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

“The Tikhanovskaya effect is absolutely possible, and in the Kremlin they understand that,” Galliamov wrote on a Telegram channel.

With Putin in full control of power, and about to run for the fifth time, supporters and opponents say he will easily win the election for a new six-year term. If he completes the term, he will become Russia’s longest-serving leader since the 18th century, surpassing all Soviet rulers, including Josef Stalin.

Putin’s most well-known opponent, Alexei Navalny, is serving sentences totaling more than 30 years, and his supporters say they do not even know where he is, after being informed that Navalny had been transferred from the previous penal colony earlier this month. Lawyers last had access to him on December 6.

The Communist Party of Russia, whose candidates have finished a distant second to Putin in every election since 2000, met on Saturday to nominate Nikolai Kharitonov, a 75-year-old man who ran previously in 2004 and got 14% of the vote against Putin’s 71%.

Another nominal opposition party in parliament, the A Just Russia For Truth party, reported on Saturday that it would support Putin’s candidacy, according to the state news agency RIA.