The Central Election Commission refused to register the initiative group to nominate Ekaterina Duntsova, a journalist from Rzhev, as a candidate in the presidential elections. This was reported in a broadcast on the CEC website.
“We found errors in Ekaterina Duntsova’s documents,” a CEC representative said. In particular, the documents did not contain a certified protocol on the meeting of the initiative group and contained other formal errors — for example, the incorrect spelling of the patronymic of one of the participants in the meeting to nominate Duntsova.
In total, according to the CEC representative, there were about a hundred errors in the documents. The commission made the decision to refuse registration unanimously. Claims in the documents for Duntsova's nomination also attracted some signatures. One of the members of Duntsova’s initiative group later told SOTA that he was indeed signing with a “seal.”
Signatures in documents that caused complaints from the CEC/Frame from the broadcast on the election commission website
The head of the election commission, Ella Pamfilova, also added that the number of applicants for nomination as presidential candidates was already 29 people.
Initially, the meeting to register Duntsova’s group was supposed to take place on December 22, but it was later postponed to Saturday. “Yesterday I received an official invitation for December 22 at 15:00, but today on the website of the election commission the issue is on the agenda for December 23 at 12:00. If they refuse, we will not have time to hold a second meeting,” the journalist commented on the postponement of the meeting.
She added that in the agenda on the CEC website, consideration of the issue of registering her initiative group differs from a similar application by Vladimir Putin. “In the case of our group, the wording is “about considering a petition,” in Putin’s case, “about registering a group of voters,” Duntsova explained.
On November 16, the journalist announced plans to run for president and presented her campaign website. She explained her desire to take the post of head of state by saying that “for the last ten years the country has been moving in the wrong direction: the course has been taken not for development, but for self-destruction.” After that, she was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and questioned about her attitude to the war; later VTB blocked transfers in her name.
After Duntsova submitted documents to the Central Election Commission, employees of the Ministry of Justice came to check with a notary, who certified the registration protocol of her initiative group. “I fear that in this way the authorities are trying to discredit the documents on my nomination presented to the Central Election Commission yesterday,” the journalist wrote then.
Duntsova advocates ending the war and the release of political prisoners. “We have to abolish all inhumane laws and restore relations with the outside world. Change budget priorities: spend money on improving the lives of citizens, and not on new tanks. “Return the taken away freedoms,” says her website.
Presidential elections in Russia will be held on March 15-17, 2024.
Updated at 12:55. Added information about signatures that caused complaints from the CEC.