Leader of the «Russian People’s Union» party Sergey Baburin announced the withdrawal of his candidacy immediately after submitting the signatures collected in his support to the Central Election Commission. Baburin did not explain why he collected the signatures. He called on voters to «unite around Putin’s candidacy.»
Nationalist-imperialist Baburin participated in the elections in 2018 and then took last place. The former chief editor of «Echo of Moscow» claims that this time he was «gently advised not to take even a percentage away from the president.»
In the Democratic Party, which nominated Irina Sviridova for the presidency, they said that she failed to collect the necessary 100 thousand signatures and thus withdrew from the campaign. She also called for support for Putin.
Thus, there are nine candidates left. Four of them, including Putin running for the fifth term, have already been registered, and one — Sergey Malinkovich — has submitted documents to the CEC. Four more candidates, including Boris Nadezhin, who advocated for the end of the war, have until the evening of January 31 to submit signatures to the Central Election Commission in support of their candidacy.