A nationalist lawmaker suggests making politicians disclose their psychiatric problems to the public and punish those who try to hide them by removing them from polls.

Aleksey Zhuravlev, who heads the nationalist party Rodina (Motherland), and sits in the Lower House on the ticket of the center-left party Fair Russia, claims that the initiative was caused by personal experience.

“In the course of election campaigns, I sometimes encounter candidates who cause only bewilderment. I have to explain the simplest things to them – like what security is, what social solidarity and responsibility are, what healthy conservatism is. Sometimes our citizens say that certain deputies must be insane. It might be a figure of speech, but we cannot rule out that it could be an actual fact,” Zhuravlev said in an interview with Izvestia daily.

“I think voters should know about psychiatric problems of the people who seek their support. The candidates must submit official papers about their mental condition to the elections commissions, and, if they conceal anything, this can be a reason for removal from polls,” he added. The MP said that the regulations could be similar to the requirements concerning criminal records – candidates must report it in their papers and can be disqualified from the race if they fail to do so.