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'Tsar, empresses' in poll bid
28/01/2008 21:19 - (SA)
Moscow - A self-styled tsar, four empresses and scores of other eccentrics have sought to register for Russian presidential elections in March, said the country's elections chief on Monday.
"Well now, we have four empresses with different names and a tsar," said Central Election Commission chairperson Vladimir Churov, leafing through a thick folder with more than 100 applications from independent candidates.
"The empresses put it in a very simple way: 'The election cannot be held without us, because we are Russia's autocratic rulers'," he said.
"The true Romanovs (the last dynasty of Russian tsars), whom I know well, are not among them," he smiled.
A demanding hopeful
Official registration of candidates for the March 2 poll ended last weekend, but applications are still flowing in, said Churov.
Kremlin-backed candidate Dmitry Medvedev is widely expected to trounce the other three main contenders.
"I demand you register me as an independent candidate and I advise you to treat this matter seriously," Churov quoted one hopeful as writing.
"Copies have been sent to the European Court of Human Rights, the OSCE (pan-European security body), the US, Nato, the United Nations and all Russian and international organisations," the letter added.
The Strasbourg-based human-rights court has registered the application, Churov said with a sigh.
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