MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) plans to consider the issue of the registration of incumbent President Vladimir Putin as a candidate for president at its session on January 29.

"About the registration of Vladimir Putin as candidate for Russian president," according to the CEC’s draft agenda for tomorrow.

CEC Deputy Chairman Nikolay Bulayev told TASS on January 26 that the commission had verified 60,000 out of 315,000 signatures submitted by Putin’s election headquarters.

By today, the Central Election Commission has registered three presidential candidates, namely Leonid Slutsky (nominated by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, or LDPR), Nikolay Kharitonov (nominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, or CPRF), and Vladislav Davankov (nominated by the New People party). Since the three were nominated by parliamentary parties they did not need to raise signatures in their support. Along with Putin, Sergey Malinkovich, the leader of the Communists of Russia party, submitted signatures in support for his presidential bid to the CEC.

Two more self-nominees, bloggers Rada Russkikh and Anatoly Batashev, and four party nominees, Sergey Baburin (Russian Popular Union), Andrey Bogdanov (Russian Party of Freedom and Justice), Boris Nadezhdin (Civil Initiative), and Irina Sviridova (Democratic Party of Russia), continue to collect signatures. Representatives of non-parliamentary parties need to collect 100,000 signatures, but not more than 2,500 ones in each of the Russia regions, to be registered as presidential candidates.

The Federation Council, or the upper house of Russia’s parliament, designated March 15-17, 2024 as the dates for holding the next presidential election.