Putin says will seek new six-year term as president in March polls

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would seek a new six-year term in the country’s March elections.

world Updated: Dec 06, 2017 23:57 IST Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse, Moscow Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech at the Railway Congress in Moscow, Russia.(Reuters File Photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin today said he would seek a new six-year term in the country’s March elections in a move that would make him the longest- serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin.

“I will offer my candidacy for the post of president of the Russian Federation,” he said during a visit to a car factory in Nizhny Novgorod.

“There is perhaps no better place and better excuse to announce this,” Putin said in a nod to his core constituency.

“Russia will go only forward! And no-one would ever stop her in this direction.”

“I suggest we don’t agree,” the 41-year-old Western- educated lawyer said on Twitter, referring to Putin’s plans to seek a fourth Kremlin term.

“I want to ask, do you trust and support me?” he addressed the huge audience of mostly young people.

“Yes!” the audience chanted.

Before Putin took the floor prominent figures, including athletes and Soviet-era celebrities such as 83-year-old actor Vasily Lanovoi, took to the stage to extol the country’s successes, such as Soviet victory in World War II.

Putin has sought to appeal to the country’s youth after thousands of young Russians took to the streets earlier this year to protest alleged corruption among the elites, targeting Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev among others.

The demonstrations were sparked by a documentary fronted by Navalny.

Putin, who first became president after Boris Yeltsin sensationally resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999, handed power to his ally Medvedev in 2008 at the end of his second term.

“He cannot seek a new term,” independent analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told AFP.

“If he left the system he himself created he would become weak and vulnerable.”

Analysts say that after more than 17 years of leadership

Many Russians say they would vote for Putin simply because they don’t see an alternative to him amid the former KGB officer’s chokehold on domestic politics.

With the result of the election already a foregone conclusion, turnout could be low, dealing a blow to the Kremlin’ hopes for a decisive new mandate, observers say.

According to a poll conducted by the independent Levada Centre pollster last month, just 58 percent of respondents said they would take part in the polls, down from 75 per cent in December 2007.

Many expect that Kseniya Sobchak, a 36-year-old glamourous former host of a television reality show and daughter of Putin’s former mentor, will likely be allowed to run against Putin to rekindle public interest in the dull election.

With the election virtually devoid of any suspence, the question is what will happen after Putin’s expected re- election and later, after his new term ends in 2024, analysts say.

“The main intrigue is, what will happen after 2018, how the configuration of power will be changing,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a Paris-based analyst for the Centre of Political Technologies in Moscow, to AFP.

“The main task for the Kremlin is to adapt the regime to Putin’s future status - be it an extension of presidential powers or the creation of a new post,” said Stanovaya.
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