Among the many reasons you can be confident that the 65-year-old former KGB lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will win re-election as Russia’s president this coming Sunday, the most persuasive is that last December, Putin’s primary challenger was conveniently disqualified from running for office.
Alexei Navalny, the popular 42-year-old anti-corruption crusader and leader of the Progress Party, had his name struck from the Central Electoral Commission’s list of approved candidates owing to convictions on embezzlement charges that the European Court of Human Rights has declared to be political frame-ups.
At least Navalny wasn’t killed.
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Source: Macleans
