Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the first of three appeals submitted by anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin against the decision of the Central Election Commission (CEC) not to register his candidacy in March’s presidential election, Nadezhdin’s Telegram channel said.
On February 8, the CEC refused to register Nadezhdin as an official candidate on the ballot after 9,147 of the 105,000 signatures of support his campaign submitted were found to have various deficiencies, a higher amount than permitted.
Judge Oleg Nefedov rejected the argument put forward by Nadezhdin and said that the signatures of support submitted by the Nadezhdin campaign had not complied with the CEC rules.
“In any case, life goes on,” Nadezhdin said while waiting for the court ruling, according to Telegram Channel Politika Strana. Upon hearing that the appeal had been rejected, he said he would appeal the Supreme Court’s decision at the Constitutional Court.
A second appeal lodged by the Nadezhdin campaign on separate grounds is due to be considered by the Supreme Court later on Thursday.
