Moscow’s election commission has officially registered opposition figure and anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny as a candidate for September's Moscow mayoral election.
The widely expected confirmation came from a statement by election commission Chairman Valentin Gorbunov and a Navalny tweet.
VOX POP: Muscovites' Views On The Navalny Trial
Navalny later tweeted a picture of himself holding the official certification card.
Navalny stopped by the election commission to pick up the certification before departing for Kirov to hear the verdict on July 18 in an embezzlement case against him.
An RFE/RL TIMELINE of Navalny's rise to opposition prominence:
Even if he is convicted, Navalny would not be barred from political office until he exhausts his appeals.
However, if he is found guilty, he could be detained.
Navalny is charged with embezzling some $510,000 from a lumber company in 2009, an allegation that the Kremlin critic and his supporters say is politically motivated.
Five other candidacies have been approved, according to RFE/RL's Russian Service, including: the ruling United Russia party's acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin; a Communist, Ivan Melnikov; Just Russia Chairman Nikolai Levichev; Liberal Democratic Party candidate Mikhail Degtyaryov; and Yabloko's Sergei Mitrokhin.
With reporting by ITAR-TASS and Interfax
