President Vladimir Putin set to get another term as Russia goes to polls

MOSCOW, March 15

Russia began three days of voting on Friday in a presidential election that is set to extend the rule of Vladimir Putin by six more years.

Two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin dominates Russia’s political landscape and none of the other three candidates on the ballot paper presents any credible challenge.

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Poised to be country’s longest-serving ruler

• With no credible and substantial challenge from three Opposition candidates, Vladimir Putin, 71, is all set to win the elections and extend his rule by six more years
• He will overtake Soviet leader Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since 18th century Empress Catherine the Great if he completes the entire new term
• Under constitutional changes that voters approved in 2020, Putin would then be eligible to run again, potentially extending his rule to 2036. He has been in power as president or prime minister since 1999

The Kremlin says Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, will win because he commands support across society for rescuing Russia from post-Soviet chaos and standing up to the West.

Russia’s best known opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony last month and other Kremlin critics are exiled or in jail. The opposition says the vote is a sham.

More than 114 million Russians are eligible to vote, including in what Moscow calls its “new territories” — four regions of Ukraine that its forces only partly control. Putin is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Liberal Democratic Party’s Leonid Slutsky and New People Party’s Vladislav Davankov. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova, were barred from running by the poll commission. — Reuters