Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin, who has openly called for a halt in Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, has submitted an application to the Central Election Commission (TsIK) to register as a candidate for the March 17 presidential election.
His website said that as of January 31, he had more than 110,000 signatures of support, above the 100,000-signature threshold needed to be registered as a candidate.
The TsIK has 10 days to evaluate the signatures for authenticity and decide whether or not Nadezhdin will be allowed to run for president.
SEE ALSO: Russian Anti-War Candidacy Bid An Unexpected Obstacle In Kremlin's Effort To Smoothly Reinstall PutinThe Uzbekistan-born 60-year-old has been supported by associates of imprisoned opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and self-exiled opposition figures Maksim Kats and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, even though expectations are that the vote will be easily won by incumbent Vladimir Putin, who has led Russia as president or prime minister since 1999.
Putin was officially registered as a candidate earlier this week for a vote he is expected to easily win with most of his main opponents in jail or outside the country, having fled for security concerns.
Russian elections are tightly controlled by the Kremlin and are neither free nor fair but are viewed by the government as necessary to convey a sense of legitimacy. They are mangled by the exclusion of opposition candidates, voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, and other means of manipulation.
In mid-November, Putin signed into law a bill on amendments to the law on presidential elections that restrict coverage of the poll, while also giving the TsIK the right to change the election procedure in territories where martial law has been introduced.
Nadezhdin, if approved, would be the fifth candidate in the race, along with Putin and Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov, who represents the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov, a Communist Party member.