© 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 by way of REUTERS/File Picture
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Vladimir Putin will run for president once more as an unbiased candidate with a large help base however not on a celebration ticket, Russian information businesses 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 unbiased candidate, Russian information businesses stated.
Putin, who has been in energy as both president or prime minister for greater than 20 years, has introduced he’ll search one other six-year time period in March subsequent 12 months in an election he’s comfortably anticipated to win.
Putin is not going to run as a candidate for the ruling United Russia (UR) occasion although he has its full help however as an unbiased 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 unbiased and that signatures could be gathered in his help.
For Putin, 71, the election is a formality: with the help of the state, the state-run media and nearly no mainstream public dissent, he’s sure to win.
Supporters of Putin say he has restored order, nationwide pleasure, and a few of the clout Russia misplaced through the chaos of the Soviet collapse and that his warfare 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 warfare handed lengthy jail phrases or flee overseas because the room for dissent has steadily shrunk.