Two Candidates Approved to Challenge Putin in Upcoming Presidential Election

Leonid Slutsky and Vladislav Davankov to Run in March Election, While Peace Advocate Yekaterina Duntsova Rejected from Ballot

• Russia's Central Election Commission has approved two candidates to run against incumbent Vladimir Putin in the presidential election in March. The candidates are Leonid Slutsky, head of the lower house of parliament's international affairs committee, and Vladislav Davankov, the vice-speaker of the lower house. Neither is expected to pose a significant challenge to Putin.
• Slutsky is a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, which in the last presidential election in 2018, tallied less than 6% of the vote. Davankov is from the New People Party, which was established in 2020 and holds 15 seats in the 450-member Duma.
• The Communist Party has put forth Nikolai Kharitonov as its candidate, but the elections commission has not formally registered him. Kharitonov was the party’s candidate in 2004, finishing a distant second to Putin.
• A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine, Yekaterina Duntsova, was rejected last month from the presidential ballot due to errors in the paperwork, including spelling. The Supreme Court rejected Duntsova’s appeal against the commission’s decision.
• Putin is running as an independent, and his campaign headquarters, together with branches of the ruling United Russia party and a political coalition called the People’s Front, have collected signatures in support of his candidacy. Under Russian law, independent candidates must be nominated by at least 500 supporters, and must also gather at least 300,000 signatures from 40 regions or more.

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