KEY POINTS:
Mikhail Kasyanov, the only remaining candidate running on a democratic opposition platform in Russia's presidential election, said yesterday that a campaign was under way to derail his candidacy after a criminal investigation was launched against him.
"The authorities fear a free political confrontation," said Kasyanov, who served as Prime Minister during Vladimir Putin's first term before becoming a critic of the administration.
Russian authorities have accused Kasyanov's campaign of forging some of the two million signatures he was required to collect from Russian citizens in support of his candidacy. The Russian prosecutor general's office said a criminal investigation had been opened in two regions. If more than 5 per cent of the signatures are declared invalid, the Central Electoral Committee will bar him from standing.
Kasyanov's regional activists, who collected the signatures, spoke of a systematic campaign of intimidation and blackmail by police.
"They're not just questioning the people who are collecting the signatures, but also their family members," said Inna Novikova, a representative of Kasyanov in the southern Karachaevo-Cherkessia region.
"They came to my house and questioned my elderly, ill mother," she added.
Novikova and representatives from other Russian regions said there had also been threats that they would be fired from their jobs if they didn't admit that signatures had been faked.
Analysts say that Kasyanov, whom opinion polls give only about 1 per cent of public support, has no chance of beating Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's choice, in the election on March 2.
- INDEPENDENT
