MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced on Friday (Dec 8) that he would run for re-election in 2024, permitting the Kremlin chief to increase his decades-long grip on energy into the 2030s.
The 71-year-old has led Russia because the flip of the century, profitable 4 presidential ballots and briefly serving as prime minister in a system the place opposition has change into just about non-existent.
The announcement got here at a set-piece Kremlin occasion for military personnel, together with some who fought within the offensive in Ukraine that Putin ordered in February final yr.
“I will not disguise it, I’ve had completely different ideas at completely different occasions, however this can be a time when a call needs to be made,” Putin stated on the ceremony.
“I’ll run for the workplace of president of the Russian Federation.”
He was talking to Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Zhoga, a Russian navy officer, who had moments earlier than urged him to run.
“Because of your actions, your choices, we have now gained freedom,” Zhoga stated, including: “We’d like you, Russia wants you.”
Putin is not going to face any main challengers in his bid for a fifth time period and can doubtless search as massive a mandate as doable so as to conceal home discord over the Ukraine battle, analysts say.
Following a controversial constitutional reform in 2020, he might keep in energy till a minimum of 2036.
Rights teams say that earlier elections have been marred by irregularities and that unbiased observers will doubtless be barred from monitoring the vote.
Putin additionally tightened media guidelines on overlaying the 2024 election in November, banning some unbiased media shops from accessing polling stations.
The election will likely be held over a three-day interval from Mar 15 to 17, a transfer that Kremlin critics have argued makes guaranteeing transparency tougher.
5 main events have been allowed to submit a candidate for the 2024 vote with out gathering signatures, all of which help the Kremlin and the offensive in Ukraine.
“PARODY”
Putin’s most high-profile rival, Alexei Navalny, is at present serving a 19-year jail sentence on fees his supporters say are false.
In a press release issued by his staff on Thursday, he inspired Russians to vote for “another candidate” other than Putin and known as the elections a “parody” of electoral process.
Since launching its assault on Ukraine final February, the Kremlin has waged a sweeping crackdown on dissent that rights teams have likened to Soviet-era repression.
1000’s of individuals have been detained and imprisoned for protests, and lots of hundreds extra have fled the nation in worry of being known as as much as battle.
The Ukraine offensive has made the Kremlin chief a pariah amongst Western leaders and his nation has been hit by unprecedented sanctions designed to curb its funding for the battle.
However whereas sanctions initially prompted an exodus of Western firms and turbulence in business, the financial system has confirmed resilient and Putin’s home approval scores have remained excessive.
Moscow has re-oriented a lot of its power exports to Asian shoppers together with China, permitting it to proceed pouring cash into the offensive, now in its twenty second month.
Analysts say Putin has sensed revived fortunes as Western help for Ukraine frays and Kyiv’s counter-offensive fails to pierce closely entrenched Russian traces.
In a bid to spice up turnout on the final presidential election in 2018, which noticed Putin win by a landslide in each area, officers solid the vote as a pivotal battle towards Western values.
The Kremlin seems to be using the identical technique this time spherical, labelling the “worldwide LGBT motion” as extremist in a November courtroom ruling, as a part of a broader tradition conflict with the West.
