Putin's two rivals withdraw from Russian presidential race

The Moscow Times reported today, January 30, that two candidates for the Russian presidency have just announced that they will withdraw from the race, and called on voters to vote for President Vladimir Putin.

Specifically, Mr. Sergei Baburin, leader of the conservative All-Russian People's Union party, said he would withdraw from the race immediately after submitting the necessary 100,000 signatures of approval as required by the election authority.

In a video posted by online news agency SOTA, Mr Baburin said it would be wrong to undermine national unity "at a difficult time for the homeland", referring to the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Russian Federation and Belarus in Saint Petersburg (Russia) on January 29.

He also called on nationalists to "unite around national leader Putin".

Mr. Baburin ran in the 2018 Russian presidential election. He came last among eight candidates, with only about 0.65% of the vote, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the Russian Democratic Party, founded in 1990, said its candidate Irina Sviridova had failed to collect the required 100,000 signatures of approval and therefore could not qualify to run.

Alexander Zorin, chairman of the Democratic Party of Russia, told state media that his party would support Mr Putin in the upcoming race.

Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) has so far registered four candidates, including Mr Putin and three members of political parties represented in the Russian parliament.

Many predict that Mr. Putin will win a fifth presidential term in the election scheduled for March 15-17.

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