Russian anti-war presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin says he has been banned from running against Vladimir Putin in the carefully managed presidential elections in March.

Earlier on Thursday the central election commission (CEC) said it had found “irregularities” in over 9,000 of more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.

That figure was three times higher than the allowable 5% error rate and provides grounds for the commission to disqualify Nadezhdin.

CEC’s deputy chair Nikolai Bulaev said last week it had found 11 “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Nadezhdin.

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