© Reuters. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin attends a gathering with the Constitutional Court docket judges on Structure Day outdoors Moscow, Russia, December 12, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Tereschenko/Pool through REUTERS/File Picture
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Vladimir Putin will run for president once more as an impartial candidate with a large help base however not on a celebration ticket, Russian information companies reported on Saturday, citing his supporters.
An initiative group made up of over 700 politicians and figures from the sporting and cultural worlds met on Saturday in Moscow and unanimously endorsed Putin’s nomination as an impartial candidate, Russian information companies mentioned.
Putin, who has been in energy as both president or prime minister for greater than twenty years, has introduced he’ll search one other six-year time period in March subsequent yr in an election he’s comfortably anticipated to win.
Putin won’t run as a candidate for the ruling United Russia (UR) occasion though he has its full help however as an impartial candidate, Andrei Turchak, a senior UR occasion official, was cited as saying by the RIA information company.
“More than 3.5 million party members and supporters will actively take part in the election campaign,” RIA quoted Turchak as saying, noting that Putin had been one of many founders of United Russia.
Sergei Mironov, a senior politician from the Simply Russia occasion who helps Putin, was additionally quoted by RIA as saying Putin would run as an impartial and that signatures can be gathered in his help.
For Putin, 71, the election is a formality: with the help of the state, the state-run media and virtually no mainstream public dissent, he’s sure to win.
Supporters of Putin say he has restored order, nationwide pleasure, and among the clout Russia misplaced through the chaos of the Soviet collapse and that his battle in Ukraine – one thing Putin calls a “special military operation” – is justified.
A years-long crackdown on opponents and critics bolstered by sweeping new legal guidelines on “fake news” and “discrediting the army” has seen critics and opponents of the battle handed lengthy jail phrases or flee overseas because the room for dissent has steadily shrunk.
