Putin registered as candidate for 2018 presidential race

MOSCOW - The Russian Central Elections Commission (CEC) registered on Tuesday incumbent President Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the upcoming presidential election, said the commission's head Ella Pamfilova.

The commission said in a live broadcast that Putin's headquarters had collected 314,837 signatures for his support, more than the 300,000 threshold needed for the registration.

It has checked 60,000 signatures and found that just 232 of them or 0.39 percent were invalid.

So far, the CEC has registered only two candidates who did not have to collect signatures, as they represent parliamentary political parties, i.e. politician and entrepreneur Pavel Grudinin from the Russian Communist Party and the leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

In accordance with Russian law, the CEC has to finish the registration of the candidates by February 10, so that their names would appear on the ballots in the elections on March 18.

It is widely expected that Putin will win by a landslide, as he enjoys much higher approval rating than his rivals.