Russia elections: Protesters arrested on final day of vote set to give Vladimir Putin fifth term

A Vladimir Putin victory is assured, most definitely by a landslide, and but there are three different names on the poll paper.

Not one of the three is taken into account credible, so who’re they?

Nikolai Kharitonov, 75,is the official candidate of the Communist Celebration. When the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg met him a number of days in the past, he had extra reward for Putin than himself.

Leonid Slutsky, 56, is the chief of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Celebration of Russia. He’s an everyday on Russian state TV the place he voices anti-Western views.

Vladislav Davankov, 40, is parliament deputy speaker and has refused to criticise the opposite candidates.

Regardless of their vastly totally different political standings, all three broadly again the Kremlin’s insurance policies.

Established opposition voices have lengthy gone been silenced. However two Ukraine conflict critics did attempt to stand. Boris
Nadezhdin (a veteran politician) and Yekaterina
Duntsova (a former TV journalist) had been each banned from working.

Native Moscow councillor Boris Nadezhdin introduced his candidacy final yr, producing a uncommon second of optimism for opposition-minded voters.

He was a frequent visitor on discuss exhibits on state TV and had been comparatively essential of Moscow’s conflict in Ukraine.

However in a rustic the place many have been jailed for talking out in opposition to the conflict, he would by no means make the poll paper. Essentially the most outstanding Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony final month and his supporters say he was murdered.