Over 1.8 mln voter signatures gathered in support of Putin’s self-nomination for president1

Over 1.8 mln voter signatures have already been gathered nationwide in support of incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin’s self-nomination for re-election, his campaign team said in a statement.

"More than 1.8 mln signatures in support of Vladimir Putin’s candidacy for the office of president of the Russian Federation have been gathered across the country. All of Russia’s 89 regions have delivered the first batches of [vote signature] documents to the election campaign headquarters," the statement reads.

The campaign team stressed that members of various volunteer organizations, as well as of the People’s Front and the ruling United Russia party, continued to gather voter signatures throughout the country.

Other presidential hopefuls gathering voter signatures include two more self-nominated candidates (beauty blogger Rada Russkikh and environmental researcher Anatoly Batashev), as well as five candidates nominated by their respective political parties: Sergey Baburin of the Russian All-People's Union; Andrey Bogdanov of the Russian Party of Freedom and Justice; Boris Nadezhdin of Civic Initiative; Sergey Malinkovich of the Communists of Russia party; and Irina Sviridova of the Democratic Party of Russia. The nominees of parties that are not represented in parliament must gather at least 100,000 voter signatures to be formally registered as candidates.
Earlier, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) registered three candidates nominated by parliamentary parties: Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR); Vladislav Davankov of New People; and Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).

Russia will hold its presidential election on March 17 with voting taking place over three days on March 15-17.