MOSCOW, March 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian presidential candidate IvanRybkin said Friday that he is pulling out of the Russian presidential race.

    "I am withdrawing my candidacy. I will not take part in this farce," he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as telling a news conference in Moscow.

    Rybkin, a fierce critic of the incumbent President Vladimir Putin, who is widely expected to be re-elected in the March 14 presidential poll, complained that in the present situation "it isextremely difficult for an opposition candidate to work in Russia."

    "I expected pressure, but I did not expect such lawlessness," Interfax quoted him as saying.

    In the meantime, he said that he would not call on other presidential candidates to follow his example.

    He also urged his voters not to cast their ballots for other candidates, saying that "a boycott of the elections would be the best option."

    Rybkin made the announcement a day after he unexpectedly returned to Moscow from London, putting an end to his self-imposedexile in London.

    The 57-year-old Rybkin mysteriously disappeared for five days early last month in the run-up of the presidential poll.

    He then reemerged suddenly in Moscow, saying that he had been held against his will by Russian security service agents.

    With a voter support rate of less than one percent, Rybkin wentto London and once vowed not to return to Russia until the end of the presidential vote.

    Rybkin is being financed by the Kremlin opposition tycoon BorisBerezovsky who himself fled to London after having a falling out due to the feud with Putin three years ago.

    The controversial candidate is now running in last place among the six contenders in the upcoming election but none of the five candidates has an approval rating higher than four percent while that of Putin stands at around 80 percent.

    Putin's allies charged that Rybkin had attempted to win a sympathy vote for his doomed campaign by staging his own disappearance. Enditem