RussiaÂ’s election authorities on Sunday barred former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, a sharp critic of the Kremlin, from running in a March presidential election against President Vladimir PutinÂ’s chosen candidate.
Kasyanov’s supporters said the March 2 poll would now be a farce and the move showed the Kremlin feared any real challenge to Dmitry Medvedev, the man Putin has backed to succeed him. The Election Commission voted unanimously to refuse to register Kasyanov because of technical errors, including forgery, which it said were found in some of the 2 million signatures needed to register him as a candidate. “This means the elections will be a farce,” Kasyanov’s spokeswoman, Yelena Dikun, said by telephone. |