What does Putin fear? Communist Party candidate banned from running in Duma elections

CPRF's candidate Pavel Grudinin

Almost two months before the parliamentary elections in Russia, the Central Election Commission barred Pavel Grudinin, a candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), from participating in the vote. 

Grudinin, who won 12% of votes when he challenged Vladimir Putin in the 2018 presidential election, was excluded from a candidate list because the Prosecutor's Office had found he held shares in a foreign company, news agencies reported. 

"Capitalism has led Russia into a 30-year depression", says Moscow City Duma deputy

Moscow City deputy for CPRF Nikolai Zubrilin.

The Lenin State Farm (Lenin Sovkhoz), a 2,000-hectare sprawl of fields growing fruits and vegetables on the outskirts of Moscow faces the danger of closing. 

In what seems to be a coordinated attack from multiple directions, Pavel Grudinin, the Farm’s director and the Communist Party’s presidential candidate in the 2018 elections, faces potential bankruptcy as the Moscow Region Arbitration Court has ordered him to pay a fine of over one million rubles ($15 million) for supposed “illegal transfer of lands”. 

From its side, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) has strongly denounced the “organized attack” against the Lenin State Farm, calling the accusations against Grudinin as arbitrary and lawless. 

Russian Elections: Putin will prevail - No candidate challenges capitalist barbarity

Today is elections day in Russia and two things are absolutely certain: 1. Vladimir Putin will be easily re-elected President and 2. None of the presidential candidates challenges the capitalist way of production. 

According to the latest polls, Mr.Putin is going to be re-elected with a high percentage, 57-70% of the votes. In the elections of 2012 he was elected with 63,6% of the votes. 

Putin is the undisputed winner of the elections. His rivals include the candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), businessman Pavel Grudinin, the veteran ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party, the former reality show tv host Ksenia Sobchak (Civil Initiative), Grigory Yavlinsky of the centre-right Yabloko, Boris Titov of the "Party of Growth", Sergey Baburin (Russian All-Peoples Union) and Maxim Suraykin (Communists of Russia). 

Russia: The candidates of the Communist Parties for the 2018 presidential elections

According to the Russian News Agency TASS, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) nominated at Saturday’s congress the head of the Lenin State Farm, Pavel Grudinin, as the party’s presidential candidate in the 2018 election. 

Grudinin's nomination, which had the support of the Party's General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov, was approved by 303 votes, while 11 (delegates) voted against. 

From its side, the Russian Communist Workers Party (RCWP) has nominated trade unionist, worker at the Kirovsky Zavod factory, Natalia Lisitsyna as its candidate for the presidential elections.