TATU to run for president of Russia ...together

The TATU pop duet intends to run in Russia’s presidential elections in March, a spokeswoman of the Neformat centre told reporters on Thursday, 25 December 2003. ''We are going to collect signatures in support of proposing TATU as a candidate in the presidential elections in the Moscow Palace of Youth on Saturday. TATU are running together. We cannot separate the girls,'' the spokeswoman said.

She did not elaborate on how the decision corresponds with Russian law which says nothing about dual candidacies for the head of state, but by doing so TATU’s management is probably trying to circumvent another article of the Law on Presidential Elections. The problem is, the law stipulates that the minimum age of a candidate must be 35. As both of the TATU girls are in their late teens, their combined ages exceed the required minimum.

Comments from other presidential hopefuls and political analysts were not available at the time of publication.