Russian electoral body ready to consider Navalny’s documents

Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Alexei Navalny Marching on Street with Others in Background; adapted from image at commons.wikimedia.org with credit to Evgeny Feldman, subject to Creative Commons license; original image at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FEV_1795_(cropped1).jpg, with license information at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en and creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

(Interfax – December 18, 2017)

Russia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) will consider the documents of all those who want to register as contenders in next year’s presidential election, including opposition politician Alexei Navalny, Interfax news agency reported on 18 December.

The agency quoted the head of the commission, Elena Pamfilova, as saying that after the would-be contenders “conduct the appropriate procedures”, the electoral body would then “look into the specific situation of each one of them”. “That is why the same formal procedure will apply to absolutely everyone: if they bring the documents, we will study them as required,” she added.

Pamfilova was answering an Interfax question about whether the CEC would consider the documents of Alexei Navalny. Previously, she had stated that the politician has no right to run in elections as he has a suspended sentence.

Navalny was found guilty of embezzlement in February in a case that he says was politically motivated. The conviction has been condemned by the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers as “arbitrary and unfair”.

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