CEC Raja leaves for Russia as foreign observer for presidential elections

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja has departed on an official visit to Russia as a foreign observer for the presidential elections.

The 8th presidential elections in Russia will continue from March 15 to 17.

Sikandar Sultan Raja will monitor the presidential election along with other observers. The chief election commissioner has been invited by the government of Russia as an observer.

71-year-old incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin is contesting the election to get another term. Other than Putin, there are three registered candidates — the nationalist conservative Leonid Slutsky, the Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov and Vladislav Davankov, a businessman.

They have all supported Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.

The only would-be candidates opposed to the campaign in Ukraine, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova, who gathered tens of thousands of signatures to support their candidacies, had their applications turned down.