Russia has tightened the rules for this year's election campaign, creating a measure that can be seen as an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to try to prevent the main opposition candidates from having free access to television space.
The measure, announced this Thursday (18) by the Russian Election Commission (CEC), aims to prohibit candidates and parties that obtained less than 2% of the votes in the last elections from launching electoral propaganda for free on local television. The rule established today has not been applied in Russia since 2009 and affects presidential candidates who are critical of Putin, such as Boris Nadezhdin, who is against the country's invasion of Ukraine.
The CEC claims that from now on, parties and candidates with poor performance at the polls must pay to appear in TV advertisements. The new measure will come into force as soon as the deadline for registering candidacies for the Kremlin, scheduled for the end of this month, ends and does not affect Putin.
The election campaign in Russia will officially begin on February 17th and last until March 15th.
The restriction on television space is seen as yet another blow by the Kremlin against the country's dissident voices, who already face difficulties in registering and participating in elections. In December, the CEC vetoed the candidacy of journalist and former councilor Yekaterina Duntsova, one of the leaders of the pro-democracy movement and against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The commission alleged that it had made “errors in the documents” presented, which had the support of more than 500 independent activists.
Putin, who is seeking his fifth consecutive term, has a popularity of almost 80%, according to official polls, which are questioned by the opposition. The president is accused of repressing freedom of expression, press and association, as well as violating human rights and intervening militarily in neighboring countries, such as Ukraine. Presidential elections in Russia are scheduled for March 17th.
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