Russia excludes senior Communist candidate from parliamentary vote

FILE PHOTO: Presidential candidate Pavel Grudinin, nominated by the Russian Communist Party, attends a news conference after the end of the voting in the presidential election, at the party's headquarters in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2018. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian electoral authorities on Saturday barred a well-known Communist Party candidate from running in September's parliamentary election, the latest high-profile opposition figure to be disqualified from the vote.

Pavel Grudinin, who won 12% of votes when he challenged Vladimir Putin in a 2018 presidential election, was excluded from a candidate list because the Prosecutor's Office had found he held shares in a foreign company, news agencies reported.