Putin officially registered as candidate for presidential elections

Russia's Central Election Commission has registered current President Vladimir Putin as the candidate for the new presidential elections.

Putin will compete for the fifth presidential mandate. Due to constitutional changes, which have been criticised by experts, Putin has the right to become president even for two terms. For the first time, he was elected president of Russia in 2000.

Putin will run as an independent candidate in the elections scheduled for 17 March. To register as a candidate, he was asked to collect at least 300,000 Russian signatures from various regions of the state to support his candidacy. Of the signatures submitted, 0.15 percent were declared invalid by the Russian Central Election Commission.

Several violations were identified during the signing meeting for Putin. In particular in St Petersburg, the signatures were collected by members of the area commission, which directly constitutes violations of the law.

Putin has become the fourth registered candidate for Russian presidential elections, after Vladislav Davankov from the New People's Party, Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party and Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party. In general, 11 candidates are aiming to compete in elections, and candidates have deadlines to collect the necessary signatures by 31 January.