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Police hunt missing Russian presidential hopeful
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-09 09:59 Russian police launched a hunt on Sunday for a
politician set to challenge President Vladimir Putin in forthcoming elections,
after his wife said he had disappeared Thursday and had not been seen since.
Election officials Saturday cleared Ivan Rybkin, a fierce critic of Putin, to
run in a March 14 poll that the incumbent is widely expected to win with ease.
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| File picture of October 2003 shows Russian
presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin in Moscow. Russian police launched a
hunt on Sunday, February 8, 2004, for Ivan Rybkin, a political rival of
President Vladimir Putin set to challenge him in forthcoming elections
after his wife reported him missing since Thursday night.
[Reuters] | But Sunday Rybkin's wife reported him missing and police called in security
services to search for him.
"His wife has made a report," a police spokesman said. "He left home at
around 7 p.m. Thursday and since then he has not been seen."
Rybkin, a former speaker of the Russian parliament's lower house, has entered
the presidential race as an independent and is backed by exiled business magnate
Boris Berezovsky.
Berezovsky accuses Putin of crushing independent media and duping public
opinion in his drive against Chechen separatism.
But few see any possibility of a credible election challenge to Putin, who
has a rating of 70 percent or more in opinion polls.
Russia was to learn later Sunday the complete list of candidates taking part
in the poll, when the Central Election Commission delivered its verdict on the
final two applications.
Officials were expected to approve as candidates populist left-wing economist
Sergei Glazyev and Irina Khakamada, the only runner from the pro-business forces
routed in December's parliamentary election.
Their registration would take the total of candidates challenging Putin to
six, including Rybkin. The others are candidates from the Communist Party and
the extreme nationalist Liberal Democrat Party and the speaker of the upper
house of parliament.
But Rybkin could fall by the wayside even before the polls.
The electoral commission has ordered an investigation into the way he
collected the two million signatures required to support his campaign.
Commission Chairman Alexander Veshnyakov said too many of the signatures were
subject to irregularities.
Should Rybkin be found to have falsified a large quantity of signatures he
could face disqualification, but his campaign team has denied large-scale errors
and vowed legal action if he is kept from the polls.
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