The Central Election Commission says it is ready to disqualify Yabloko party founder Grigory Yavlinsky from the presidential race because too many of his signatures of support are invalid, agency secretary Nikolai Konkin said on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reports.
Yavlinsky had to collect 2 million signatures in support of his bid but the commission checked a 400,000-signature sample this week and reported 23 percent of them to be invalid, well above the 5 percent limit allowed for discrepancies.
A second check of a 200,000-signature sample was halfway through as of midday Tuesday but the combined percentage for both samples still stood at 24 percent at that time, Konkin said. That renders Yavlinsky ineligible for inclusion on the ballot for the March 4 election.
