MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Thirty people who declared their wish to participate in the Russian presidential election were not nominated at vote group meetings or party conventions and did not file documents with the Central Election Commission (CEC), CEC deputy head Nikolay Bulaev told reporters on Friday.

"We are not trying to guess how many candidates will be there, we are just checking their documents. Many candidates withdrew from the process and some did not even embark on it. Thirty people initially stated their wish to become party or self-nominated candidates, but did not hold their organizational meetings after that," he said.

According to earlier reports, 46 potential election participants informed the CEC about holding of voter meetings to support self-nominated candidates and 24 parties scheduled conventions to nominate candidates.

Seventeen candidates were nominated and are currently taking part in the election campaign: two self-nominated candidates and 15 party candidates. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kostroma Region Duma MP and honored inventor Vladimir Mikhailov are participating as self-nominated candidates. Those nominated by parties are Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR), Pavel Grudinin (CPRF), Elvira Agurbash (Green Alliance), Sergey Baburin (Russian People’s Union), Irina Volynets (People’s Party of Russia), Yekaterina Gordon (Party of Good Deeds), Stanislav Polishchuk (Party of Social Reforms), Ksenia Sobchak (Civil Initiative), Maxim Suraikin (Communists of Russia), Boris Titov (Party of Growth), Roman Khudyakov (Honest), Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko), Natalia Lisitsyna (Rot Front), Anton Bakov (Monarchical Party of Russia) and Mikhail Kozlov (Party of Social Protection).

Now all of them, save Zhirinovsky and Grudinin, have to collect signatures in their support. The LDPR and CPRF candidates were freed from the signature collection procedure and already passed the registration. The self-nominated candidates have to collect 300,000 signatures to be registered and the candidates from non-parliamentary parties, 100,000. The CEC will be receiving signatures and documents for the registration until 18:00, January 31.

The Russian presidential election will be held on March 18.