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MOSCOW: Russia will hold a presidential election on Mar 15-17 which President Vladimir Putin is certain to win, barring an unexpected development. That will give the longest serving Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin another six-year term in power.
How will it work?
WHEN?
The election will be held on Mar 15-17. Results will follow shortly afterwards and the winner will be inaugurated in May.
Voting will also take place in what Russia calls its new territories – parts of Ukraine now controlled by Russian forces which have been placed under Russian law.
Ukraine says it will not rest until it has ejected every last Russian soldier from the annexed territories.
A remote online voting system will be available for the first time in a Russian presidential election.
HOW MANY VOTERS?
There are 112.3 million people with the right to vote in the election. Another 1.9 million people abroad have the right to vote and 12,000 in Baikonur, a cosmodrome which Russia rents in Kazakhstan.
Around 70-80 million people usually cast ballots. Turnout in 2018 was 67.5 per cent.
WHO IS RUNNING?
Putin is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party.
Boris Nadezhdin, an anti-war candidate, was barred from running as was Yekaterina Duntsova.
Further details on the candidates can be found here.
PUTIN
Putin, 71, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, was appointed acting president by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999. He won the 2000 presidential election with 53.0 per cent of the vote and the 2004 election with 71.3 per cent of the vote.
In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev ran for president and Putin served as prime minister before winning 63.6 per cent of the vote in the 2012 presidential election and 76.7 per cent in 2018.
HOW LONG CAN A RUSSIAN PRESIDENT RULE?
Putin has already served as president for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, beating even Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure.
The 1993 Russian constitution, based loosely on France’s 1958 constitution, was seen by some in the West as a development that would lead to democracy in post-Soviet Russia.
It originally specified that a president could only serve two terms of four years if they were back-to-back.
But amendments in 2008 extended the presidential term to six years, while amendments in 2020 formally reset Putin’s own presidential term tally to zero from 2024, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036. The changes also banned ceding any territory.
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