An Anti-War Candidate Is Barred from the Russian Presidential Election

A candidate for President of the Russian Federation who had been nominated by the requisite number of supporters at a meeting was rejected late last week by the Kremlin-controlled election commission. The former journalist had intended to challenge the tyrannical incumbent Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer intent on restoring the Soviet Union, in the presidential elections next year on a platform of opposition to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and releasing political prisoners. Putin, who has ruled Russia either as President or Prime Minister since late 1999, had successfully promoted a constitutional change to end term limits, which allowed him to serve another six-year term before the last election. The “Czar” restricts freedoms and controls the judiciary. The authoritarian Putin only tolerates political opposition parties that do not criticize him harshly to make Russia appear to have representative government and his elections to seem legitimate. Journalists, human rights activists and political opponents are usually imprisoned, banished, assaulted or assassinated at home and abroad. The main supporter of liberty in Russia, the center-right Alexei Navalny, has been imprisoned under harsh conditions on various trumped-up charges and was recently transferred to another prison, leaving his whereabouts unknown. For the Russian people ever to enjoy liberty and representative government, Putin will have to be out of power and replaced by someone unafraid to trust them.