MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin will run again in the presidential election as an independent candidate, the state-backed RIA news agency said on Saturday, citing two senior pro-Kremlin lawmakers.
In power as president or prime minister for more than two decades, Vladimir Putin has announced he will seek another six-year term in March next year, in an election he is widely expected to win.
He will not run as a candidate of the ruling United Russia (UR) party, even though he has its full support, but as an independent candidate, Andrei Turchak, a senior party official, was quoted as saying by the RIA agency.
Sergei Mironov, an official of the Just Russia party which supports Vladimir Putin, also quoted by RIA, also declared that the president would run as an independent and that signatures would be collected in his favor.
For Vladimir Putin, 71, the election is a formality. With the support of the state, public media and the almost total absence of dissent in public opinion, he is certain to win.
His supporters say he has restored order, national pride and some of the influence that Russia lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that his war in Ukraine – which he calls “special military operation” – is justified.
Years-long repression of opponents and critics, reinforced by sweeping new laws on “fake news” and “discrediting the army”, has seen opponents of the war sentenced to long prison terms or face imprisonment. flee abroad, while the room for maneuver for dissent has continued to diminish.
(Reuters report, written by Andrew Osborn, French version Benjamin Mallet)
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