Intending to rule Russia until 2030, Putin is unlikely to face real competitors in the pseudo-elections in 2024.
“Liberal” veteran Grigory Yavlinsky has refused to take part in the upcoming presidential race, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to win a “convincing” victory.
Yavlinsky, 71, a three-time candidate, will not take part in the elections, his press service said on Saturday. He will only consider running if he gets 10 million signatures in support of his candidacy, but he only has about 1 million, Yavlinsky said in an interview with an online program hosted by independent journalists on YouTube
Russia is due to hold presidential elections in March 2024, shortly after the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. Putin, already the Kremlin’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, is running for a new six-year term. Since the result is widely perceived as a formality, the election process so far shows that Putin will not have a strong opponent.
According to Interfax, 29 people are considering the possibility of participating in the election campaign, Ella Pamfilova, head of the Russian election commission, said on Saturday.
Election commission authorities on Saturday refused to register the party of anti-war journalist Ekaterina Duntsova, preventing her from participating in the election race. Duntsova asked Yavlinsky’s Yabloko party to make her its representative, but Yavlinsky said the party would not have candidates, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
The Communist Party of Russia on Saturday approved 75-year-old MP Nikolai Kharitonov as its candidate. He ran against Putin in 2004 and received almost 14% of the vote, finishing second. Longtime party leader Gennady Zyuganov decided not to run because of the risk of receiving fewer votes than the party received in 2018, RBC reported, citing unnamed party officials.
Earlier, the Russian Central Election Commission presented the logo for Putin’s election for a fifth term.
In the Russian Federation, on the eve of the elections, they began to actively compile lists of Putin’s opponents.
Author: Dmitry Myronenko
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2023-12-23 16:43:12
