A former TV journalist has been disqualified from running against Vladimir Putin in Russia’s presidential election because of alleged flaws in her application to register as a candidate.
Footage from a meeting of the central electoral commission in Moscow showed members voting unanimously to reject the candidacy of Yekaterina Duntsova, who had wanted to run on a platform to end the war in Ukraine and release political prisoners.
Her disqualification was seized on by Putin’s critics as proof that no one with genuine opposition views will be allowed to stand against him in March – the first presidential election since the start of the 22-month conflict.
Duntsova, 40, told reporters her team had assembled the application in a hurry and had trouble finding a lawyer to certify the bid, after dozens of others declined.
She said she had approached the veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky about the possibility of submitting a new application to stand as a representative of his Yabloko party.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter now labelled by the authorities as a “foreign agent”, said Putin had not wanted to risk the same scenario as Alexander Lukashenko.
The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A former TV journalist has been disqualified from running against Vladimir Putin in Russia’s presidential election because of alleged flaws in her application to register as a candidate.
Footage from a meeting of the central electoral commission in Moscow showed members voting unanimously to reject the candidacy of Yekaterina Duntsova, who had wanted to run on a platform to end the war in Ukraine and release political prisoners.
Her disqualification was seized on by Putin’s critics as proof that no one with genuine opposition views will be allowed to stand against him in March – the first presidential election since the start of the 22-month conflict.
Duntsova, 40, told reporters her team had assembled the application in a hurry and had trouble finding a lawyer to certify the bid, after dozens of others declined.
She said she had approached the veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky about the possibility of submitting a new application to stand as a representative of his Yabloko party.
Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter now labelled by the authorities as a “foreign agent”, said Putin had not wanted to risk the same scenario as Alexander Lukashenko.
The original article contains 621 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!