Russia Bars Kremlin Critic From Running for President<br />25, 2017<br />MOSCOW — Russian election officials on Monday barred the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalnyfrom running in next year’s presidential election, a widely expected decision<br />that prompted him to call for his supporters to boycott the election and take part in street protests.<br />Navalny said that We will campaign against this fake election and persuade people not to take part in it,<br />Navalny said that We won’t have an election because Vladimir Putin is horribly afraid, he sees a threat in competing with me,<br />Mr. Putin wrote that Elections now look like games of the Night Hockey League, where Putin, in the company of 10 lackeys, scores eight goals,<br />"He gave an instruction to his servants from the Central Electoral Commission to reject my registration."<br />In the video, Mr. Navalny called on his supporters to boycott the election, scheduled for March.<br />At the Central Election Commission on Monday, Mr. Navalny engaged in a heated debate with Ella A. Pamfilova, who<br />was elected as the commission’s chairwoman in 2016 amid demands for fairness and transparency in elections.
