Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin wants to remain in office for another six years and is running for re-election in the Russian presidential election next year. After that he would be in office longer than Joseph Stalin.
At a request from military officials at a ceremony in the Kremlin to honor soldiers, Putin announced his intention to run in the election for the fifth time, Russia’s three largest state news agencies reported unanimously. According to the electoral commission, the election will take place from March 15th to 17th. It is the first time that the president will be elected over three days in the largest country in the world.
Image: AFP
Putin had the Russian constitution changed specifically in order to be able to run again. He was appointed his successor by then President Boris Yeltsin on New Year’s Eve 1999. Since then, he has determined Russia’s fate as president or – after a strategic move with Dmitri Medvedev – temporarily as prime minister. If Putin completes another six-year term in the Kremlin, he would overtake Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. He would then be Russia’s longest-serving head of state since Tsarina Catherine II, known as the Great, in the 18th century.
The 71-year-old has no serious rival. Russia’s best-known opposition politician Alexei Navalny is serving a total of more than 30 years in prison in a penal colony. The opposition complains that the election is a parody. But it is also a fact that after almost a quarter of a century in power, Putin still enjoys broad popular support.
