MAKHACHKALA, January 1. /TASS/. Aina Gamzatova, the adviser and wife of the Dagestani Mufti and editor-in-chief of Islam magazine, has submitted required documents to Russia’s Central Election Commission for her self-nomination for Russian presidency, Gamzatova’s spokeswoman Gurizada Kamalova told TASS on Monday.
"The procedure of submitting documents has been completed. Everything is all right. She personally submitted the documents and they were accepted by the staff of the working group headed by [Central Election Commission member] Yevgeny Shevchenko," the spokeswoman said.
Gamzatova was nominated as a candidate for the presidential run by an initiative group of 542 citizens. The group held its gathering in Makhachkala in late 2017.
Russia’s Central Election Commission will now pass a decision on registering authorized representatives of the electors’ group set up in support of Gamzatova’s self-nomination and on her right to open a special bank account to finance the electoral campaign.
A self-nominee is obliged to present no less than 300,000 signatures, with each region accounting for no more than 7,500 signatures of local residents.
Journalist, writer, public and religious figure Aina Gamzatova was born on October 1, 1971 in Makhachkala. She has university degrees in philology and law.
Gamzatova has set up and heads a large media group that comprises both secular and Islamic media outlets. She is a co-founder of the Path charity fund and is also editor-in-chief of Islam magazine and an adviser to the Dagestani Mufti for communications with the bodies of power, the public and the media.
Russia will be holding its seventh presidential election in its modern history on March 18, 2018.
The presidential campaign officially kicked off on December 18, 2017.
Vladimir Putin submitted documents to the Central Election Commission for his nomination in the 2018 presidential election on December 27, 2017.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, became the first candidate to be registered as a presidential contender by the Central Election Commission (CEC) on December 29, 2017.
Other high-profile hopefuls include Grigory Yavlinsky, co-founder of the Yabloko Party, business ombudsman and head of the Party of Growth Boris Titov, TV host and journalist Ksenia Sobchak, who was nominated by the Civil Initiative party, and CEO of Lenin State Farm agricultural company Pavel Grudinin, nominated by the Communist Party of Russia. In addition, a number of other candidates have also submitted their nomination papers to the Central Election Commission.
According to the campaign schedule, candidates nominated by parties are obliged to provide documents required for nomination to the Central Election Commission before January 12, while independent candidates must do that before January 7.
The post of the Russian president, elected according to direct suffrage, was introduced based on the results of a referendum on March 17, 1991.