page_title: 2018 Alexei Navalny presidential campaign
section_title: Registration and official rejection
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 Alexei Navalny presidential campaign / Campaigning / Registration and official rejection
caption_attribution_description: English: Alexei Navalny speaks to his supporters in Moscow after they initiated his longshot attempt to be in the ballot on the upcoming presidential elections
context_page_description: The Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny announced his intention to run for President of Russia in the 2018 election on 13 December 2016. The primary themes of his campaign have been focusing on domestic issues, including combating corruption in Russia and improving the economy. Commentators have noted that Navalny's campaign is unprecedented in modern Russia as politicians usually do not start campaigning until a few months before the election.
  Navalny began openly campaigning for the presidency before the official registration for the elections occurred in spite of court proceedings against him in a fraud case, which could bar him from running since the Russian election legislation deprives certain criminals of eligibility. In February 2017, a district court in Kirov upheld his suspended sentence despite the European Court of Human Rights siding with Navalny. In May, the deputy chief of the Central Election Commission commented that Navalny will not be allowed to run. Navalny and his staff said that they will appeal to the ECHR and will continue campaigning to give the government no choice but to accept his candidacy.
context_section_description: On December 24, Navalny launched his official candidacy at Serebryany Bor, Beach No. 3, located in Moscow. Here, Navalny held a meeting of an "initiative group" to register his candidacy. Navalny announced that he had gathered enough endorsements to run in the election, after his supporters had previously organized rallies in 20 cities across Russia to secure 15,000 signatures.
  The meeting featured a nomination ceremony, and was attended by exactly 742 supporters. He needed 500 endorsements each in  20 different cities, thus similar events were held in nineteen other cities across Russia. 
  These events took place in Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Izhevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Perm. St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saratov, Tyumen, Ufa, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Voronezh, Yaroslavl, and Yekaterinburg. The nomination in Moscow was also attended by election workers, who were there to witness that everything was being done in accordance with the law. Navalny and his supporters began to assemble the documents to officially register his candidacy with the elections committee, with some difficulty, as the low temperatures caused their printers to stop working.
  
  At the meeting, Navalny called Vladimir Putin a  “bad president,” saying, 
  "It's you, Vladimir Putin, that turned our country into a source of personal enrichment for yourself, your family, and your friends. Therefore, you should no longer be president."
  Navalny also alleged that Putin lacks the strong public support that he claims to hold, and that his candidacy was going prove that to be the case.
  
  After the meeting, Navalny tweeted, 
  "I have become an official candidate nominated by activist groups of voters. Many thanks to those who have taken part in this campaign in all corners of our country. You are the best."
  The meeting was followed the same day by an opposition protest attended by 1,000 in Lermontov Square. The protest was a pro-Navalny demonstration organized by Ilya Yashin.
  
  On December 25, the elections commission voted that Navalny was ineligible to run for president, thus officially rejecting Navalny's candidacy and barring him from running. Navalny responded to the commission's decision by calling on his supporters to boycott the election. Navalny released a pre-recorded video following the decision, saying, 
  "The procedure that we're invited to take part is not an election. Only Putin and the candidates he has hand-picked are taking part in it. Going to the polls right now is to vote for lies and corruption."
  
  Of his call for a boycott, Navalny told BBC, 
  "We're declaring a strike by voters. The procedure that we're invited to take part is not an election. Only Putin and the candidates that he personally chose, ones who don't pose the slightest threat to him, are taking part."
  Before the decision had been announced, Navalny had commented that the speed with which they had held assembled to vote, only 18 hours after he had filed his candidacy, indicated that they had already decided beforehand to reject his candidacy. Navalny filed a lawsuit to appeal against the CEC’s decision in Russia’s Supreme Court on 28 December. At the hearing, which took place on 30 December, the Supreme Court rejected Navalny’s claim. Navalny filed an appeal against the Supreme Court’s ruling on 3 January 2018.
caption: Navalny delivering a speech at his nomination ceremony in Moscow
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1D X Mark II", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 9.12 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2017:12:24 13:33:48", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[55, 58467/1250, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[37, 243329/10000, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "267/2", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[9, 26, 15]", "GPS GPSSatellites": "13", "GPS GPSStatus": "A", "GPS GPSMeasureMode": "3", "GPS GPSDOP": "3/2", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDate": "2017:12:24", "Image GPSInfo": "790", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1166", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10095", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "5/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "1000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:12:24 12:26:45", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:12:24 12:26:45", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1165241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "165241/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "1", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "85", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "41", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "41", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1520", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "143016000183", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[85, 85, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "EF85mm f/1.4L IS USM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "5900000788"}