Sergei Mironov was registered as presidential candidate of Russia.

ITAR-TASS - The leader of A Just Russia political party, Sergei Mironov, has been registered as a presidential candidate. He has become a second official participant in the presidential election race, to be held on March 4, 2012.

On December 20, the Central Election Commission registered Prime Minster Vladimir Putin, nominated as a presidential candidate on November 27 at a congress of the United Russia party, of which he is the leader.

Mironov, 58, was named for president from A Just Russia at the party’s congress on December 10. The candidature of the former speaker of the Federation Council, who now leads the A Just Russia faction in the 6th State Duma, was supported by 232 delegates to the congress, while only five voted against. In contrast to the leaders of the other parliamentary parties Mironov participated in a presidential election just once. In March 2004 he collected 0.76 percent of the votes. At that time A Just Russia had not been established yet.

“I did not have such a powerful and reliable team then,” Mironov said.

Now, in the wake of A Just Russia’s successful performance in the parliamentary elections, in which the party collected 13.24 percent of the votes and managed to create the third largest faction, Mironov is obviously determined to achieve a good result in the presidential campaign. He has said more than once that he is going to participate not just for the sake of participation, but in an attempt to win.

In the near future registration is to be obtained by the leaders of other Duma parties. As CEC secretary Nikolai Konkin has said, on December 23 the registration documents were submitted by CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov and LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The CEC is to consider the issue within a ten-day deadline, but, as experience shows, decisions on candidates nominated by parliamentary parties are made faster.

The other potential participants in the presidential campaign are to present no less than two million signatures in their support for registration at the CEC. This applies to the Yabloko-nominated founder of the party Grigory Yavlinsky and Irkutsk Region Governor Dmitry Mezentsev. The first editor-in-chief of Rossiiskaya Gazeta, author Boris Mironov, will now join in. The Supreme Court has declared void the CEC’s refusal to register the group of his supporters.

The deadline for submitting the documents and sign-up lists for registration is 18:00 Moscow time on January 18. The CEC will have ten days to check them. This means that by the end of January Russia will know the names and number of official candidates for the presidency. This time the head of state will be elected for a six-year term.