RUSSIA’S national elections commission today registered the Communist Party’s candidate to challenge President Vladimir Putin in the March election.

Nikolai Kharitonov joins two other candidates who were approved to stand last week. At a launch event he said the party’s campaign slogan would be “We’ve played capitalism, and that’s enough!”

Mr Kharitonov, a member of parliament, has opposed some of President Putin’s domestic policies but not Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Communist Party endorses though some of its MPs have individually protested.

The Communist candidate typically gets the second-highest vote tally. Mr Kharitonov challenged Mr Putin for the party once before, in 2004, winning 13.8 per cent.

The commission last week approved Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and Vladislav Davankov of the New People Party for the March 15-17 vote.

Both parties are largely supportive in parliament of legislation backed by Mr Putin’s United Russia party.

A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine was barred from standing last month.