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Russia disqualifies independent from presidential poll

The Kremlin on Sunday kicked the only independent contender in Russia's presidential election off the ballot, a move described by activists as undemocratic and predictable.

Russia's Central Election Commission disqualified Michael Kasyanov from taking part in the March 2 poll. It claimed that more than 13 percent of the signatures needed for his candidacy to be registered had been faked.

The disqualification will raise further questions about the election's legitimacy. International observers described last month's parliamentary poll as profoundly rigged.

Kasyanov is a former prime minister who fell out with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2004. He was the only genuinely independent candidate in the race. Under Kremlin rules he had to gather 2 million signatures, something officials said he failed to do.

"Undoubtedly the decision not to register my candidacy ... was made personally by Vladimir Putin," Kasyanov said.

"Hopes that the political process [in Russia] will develop constitutionally have not been justified," he said.

Human rights activists said the disqualification of Kasyanov, who was thought unlikely to get more than 5 percent of the vote, was a Kremlin strategy designed to prevent him from embarrassing the authorities during the campaign.

"The denial of registration to Mikhail Kasyanov is a well thought out maneuver. It lowers the democratic level of this election," Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a human rights activist and leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group, told the agency Interfax.

There is not much doubt who will win the election. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's first deputy prime minister, is favored to win easily following Putin's endorsement of him as his successor last month. None of the three remaining candidates has any chance.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the elections for the state Duma were unfair.
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