In office until 2030?
Putin could soon announce his candidacy
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
If Vladimir Putin runs again in next year’s presidential election, he could remain in office until at least 2030. The media has been speculating for months as to whether and when Putin will run for re-election in 2024. According to Russian law, it should happen soon.
According to a media report, Russian President Vladimir Putin could soon declare that he will run again in next year’s election. That would pave the way for the soon-to-be 71-year-old to remain in power until at least 2030. Putin could announce his participation in the 2024 election at a conference in November, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported, citing insiders in the presidential administration. However, there could also be other scenarios for Putin at the conference, the paper wrote.
The final decision rests with Putin himself. When asked, the Kremlin initially did not comment on the report. Putin himself said in September that he would not announce his plans until parliament had called presidential elections. According to Russian law, this must happen in December. If Putin decides to run, no one will be able to stand up to him, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last month.
Even without competition in the election campaign, the former KGB spy Putin faces numerous challenges. The war of aggression against Ukraine has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the strongest shock to the Russian economy in decades. In addition, in June Putin was confronted with an uprising by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin that was broken off after a short time – a turning point for the ruler in Moscow. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a plane crash.
The last major wave of voting before Putin most likely wants to be elected to his fifth term in office next spring was the regional elections in September. Since the start of the war against Ukraine, repression against Kremlin critics has increased massively in the world’s largest country. The number of candidates for political office has fallen dramatically. The prison camp sentence for Russia’s best-known opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who received more than 27 percent of the vote in the Moscow mayoral election in 2013, was increased to 19 years at the beginning of August. Politicians such as Vladimir Kara-Mursa, Ilya Yashin, Andrei Pivovarov have also been deprived of their freedom for many years – the list goes on.
Putin was first given the presidency at the end of 1999 by the then incumbent Boris Yeltsin. Many observers assume that Putin wants to remain in power. However, there is currently no official confirmation that he will run again in the election on March 17, 2024.
