Kremlin questions legality of vote fight
MOSCOW — The Kremlin hinted Tuesday at possible legal repercussions for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny over his calls for a boycott of the
March presidential election.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, wouldn’t comment on the Election Commission’s decision to bar Navalny from running but said the “calls for boycott ought to be carefully studied to see if they are breaking the law.”
Russia’s top election body on Monday formally barred Navalny from a presidential run. He called on supporters to stay away from the vote in protest.
Meanwhile, Putin’s backers convened Tuesday afternoon to formally nominate him for presidency after he announced that he will run as an independent candidate.
Prominent lawmakers, film actors, musicians and athletes gathered at a Soviet-era exhibition hall to endorse him. Putin did not attend because of other engagements, Peskov said.
Peskov rejected suggestions that Navalny’s absence from the ballot could dent the legitimacy of Putin’s possible re-election.
Navalny rose to prominence in 2009 with investigations into official corruption and became a protest leader when hundreds of thousands took to the streets across Russia in 2011 to protest electoral fraud.
A few years later, and after several short-term spells in jail, Navalny faced two separate sets of fraud charges, which were viewed as political retribution aimed at stopping him from running for office. The European Union said in a statement Tuesday that the decision to keep Navalny off the ballot “casts a serious doubt on political pluralism in Russia and the prospect of democratic elections next year.”
The EU’s spokesman for foreign affairs, Maja Kocijancic, pointed to a European Court of Human Rights ruling that Navalny was denied the right to a fair trial when he was convicted in 2013.
“Politically motivated charges shouldn’t be used against political participation,” Kocijancic said.