Fierce opponent? Lawyer seen as the only Opposition leader who stands a fighting chance of challenging Putin
\nMoscow,
\nRussian opposition leader Alexei Navalny cleared the first hurdle on Sunday towards taking part in next year\u2019s presidential election, even though the central election commission has previously ruled him ineligible to run.<\/p>\n
Navalny, 41, is a fierce opponent of President Vladimir Putin, who is widely expected to win re-election in March, extending his 17 years in power.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Navalny, a veteran campaigner against corruption among Russia\u2019s elite, won the initial support of 742 people at a gathering in a district of Moscow, above the minimum 500 required to initiate a presidential bid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no large-scale support for Putin and his rule in this country,\u201d Navalny told the gathering, describing himself as a \u201creal candidate\u201d for the election and threatening a boycott of the vote by his supporters if he is barred from running.<\/p>\n
But Navalny now needs to be officially registered as a candidate by Russia\u2019s central election commission, which has previously said he was ineligible due to a suspended prison sentence that he says was politically motivated.<\/p>\n
Navalny has been jailed three times this year on charges of repeatedly organising public meetings and rallies in violation of existing laws. He says the Kremlin is deliberately trying to thwart his political ambitions.<\/p>\n
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in October that Navalny\u2019s conviction for fraud in 2014 was \u201carbitrary\u201d and ordered Moscow to pay him compensation.<\/p>\n
In Moscow, finding a premises for the Sunday event had been so hard that Navalny\u2019s campaign pitched a huge tent in a park on the snow-covered shores of the Moscow River. Yury Berchenko, one of some 300 supporters who gathered in the tent, called Navalny an \u201chonest and sincere\u201d man, saying he should be allowed to contest the vote. \u201cHe mobilises people,\u201d Berchenko told AFP. \u201cSuch a man should be president or at least take part in a debate and ask difficult questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pensioner Marina Kurbatskaya also showed up in the picturesque park to support Navalny as she criticised \u201clies and thievery\u201d in Russia. \u201cIf Navalny is not allowed to run I am not going to vote,\u201d she told AFP. \u201cI don\u2019t see anyone else who I want to become president.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday Russia\u2019s ruling party United Russia pledged \u201call possible support\u201d to the 65-year-old Putin in his bid to win a further six years in power in the March election.<\/p>\n
Also on Saturday, the Russian Communist Party named its presidential candidate, Pavel Grudinin, 57. The party came second after United Russia in the 2016 parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Russian property developer Sergei Polonsky, who has been convicted of defrauding investors, also secured enough initial backing to seek clearance from the election commission to take part in the presidential race.<\/p>\n
Others planning to run include television personality Ksenia Sobchak, whose late father was Putin\u2019s boss in the early 1990s, journalist Ekaterina Gordon. \u2014 Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fierce opponent? Lawyer seen as the only Opposition leader who stands a fighting chance of challenging Putin Moscow, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny cleared the first hurdle on Sunday towards taking part in next year\u2019s presidential election, even though the central election commission has previously ruled him ineligible to run. Navalny, 41, is a fierce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15555,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15553\/revisions\/15555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}