2024-01-29 11:12:02
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s electoral commission formally registered President Vladimir Putin as a candidate in March’s presidential election, a vote in which he will almost certainly win another six-year term.
Putin, 71, presents himself as independent, but maintains close control over the Russian political system he has established during 24 years in power. Prominent critics who might challenge him are imprisoned or living abroad and most independent media are banned, so his re-election in the March 15-17 elections seems all but guaranteed.
Putin also ran as an independent in 2018, leaving aside the United Russia party that nominated him in 2012. His approval rating is around 80%, making him much more popular than United Russia, widely considered part of the controlled bureaucracy. by the Kremlin more than as a political force.
The Central Election Commission formally authorized Putin’s candidacy following reviewing 315,000 signatures collected for his campaign in Russia’s 89 regions. Russian electoral law requires independent candidates to submit at least 300,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
The commission has already given the green light to three other candidates from parties with parliamentary representation, who were not required to present signatures: Nikolai Kharitonov, from the Communist Party; Leonid Slutsky, of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov, of the New People’s Party.
The three groups have mostly supported the Kremlin’s initiatives. Kharitonov ran once morest Putin in 2004 and finished a distant second.
Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old progressive politician who serves as a local legislator in a town near Moscow, also wants to run. He has openly called for an end to the war in Ukraine and beginning a dialogue with the West.
Thousands of Russians have lined up across the country to sign in support of Nadezhdin’s candidacy so he can run, a rare show of opposition sympathies in a tightly controlled political landscape that posed a challenge to the Kremlin.
The Central Election Commission is expected to review Nadezhdin’s application this week to determine whether to register him in the elections.
Under a constitutional reform led by himself, Putin can run for two more six-year terms, which in theory would allow him to remain in power until 2036.
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