Lawmakers set the date for Russia’s next presidential election
Lawmakers in Russia set Thursday, March 17, as the date for the country’s next presidential election, setting in motion a race that few doubt will result in the re-election of President Vladimir V. Putin for another six-year term.
Although the outcome of the vote in Russia is widely seen as a foregone conclusion, the campaign will take place under drastically different circumstances than the previous one in 2018.
It will be the first presidential election since Mr Putin ordered the massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It will also be the first election since constitutional changes in 2020 allowed Mr Putin, 71, to reinstate his term . limit clock. (Some constitutional lawyers and experts are still debating the legality of the reset).
Thursday’s vote in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, marked the formal start of the election campaign. Before the vote, Valentina I. Matviyenko, the council’s chairman, gave a strong indication of who she thought would win.
“Our people will confidently make the only right choice by voting for Russia, victory and a future in a strong and sovereign country,” Ms. Matviyenko said, referring to the priorities Mr. Putin set even if she did not . don’t mention him by name.
Putin is expected to announce his intention to run for office in the coming weeks, but some political parties rushed to support him on Thursday ahead of a formal declaration.
Sergei M. Mironov, the leader of the Just Russia party, one of five representatives in Russia’s parliament, said his group supported Mr. Putin, as did Vladimir A. Shamanov, a deputy of the ruling United Russia party.
Ella A. Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s Central Electoral Commission, said the body would deliberate in the coming days on whether the vote would take place over a three-day period, rather than one day – a longer process that critics expect . have said reduces transparency.
The committee will also discuss whether the vote will take place in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia after the invasion, Ms. Pamfilova said.
Many parties and potential candidates have participated in previous elections, but this time, after the invasion of Ukraine, the political landscape is very different.
Many outspoken critics of Mr Putin and his policies have had to flee Russia. Aleksei A. Navalny, whose presidential bid was rejected by the Central Electoral Commission, is serving a long prison sentence in a penal colony. On Thursday, Navalny’s political allies called on Russians to vote for a candidate other than Putin.
“Putin has been terrorizing our country for 24 years,” Ivan Y. Zhdanov, the director of Mr. Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, said in a video announcing the effort. “He plans to do this indefinitely.”
So far, three Russian politicians have announced their intention to act against Putin.
Boris B. Nadezhdin, a city councilor in a suburb near Moscow, has said that ending the war was his top priority. Igor Girkin, a nationalist warlord and blogger currently in prison awaiting trial on extremism charges, has called for a tougher approach in Ukraine. Yekaterina S. Duntsova, who also campaigns against the war, has so far gained limited national appeal.
To register as candidates, they must collect thousands of signatures from supporters, a requirement that could be a difficult hurdle for opposition politicians to overcome in a country where opposition activities have been sharply curtailed by the state.