MOSCOW, March 15 (Reuters) – Russia started three days of voting on Friday in a presidential election that can prolong Vladimir Putin's rule for an additional six years.
Two years after the conflict in Ukraine, Putin dominates Russia's political panorama and not one of the different three candidates on the poll presents any credible problem.
The Kremlin says that Putin, in energy as president or prime minister since 1999, will win as a result of he instructions assist all through society to avoid wasting Russia from post-Soviet chaos and stand as much as the West.
Russia's best-known opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, died all of a sudden in an Arctic penal colony final month and different critics of the Kremlin are in exile or in jail. The opposition says the vote is a farce.
Greater than 114 million Russians are eligible to vote, together with in what Moscow calls its “new territories” – 4 areas of Ukraine that its forces solely partially management however which it has declared as a part of Russia. Ukraine says the election rigging is prohibited and void.
Putin is working towards communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, chief of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Occasion, and Vladislav Davankov of the New Individuals's Occasion. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova had been prevented by the electoral fee, which cited irregularities of their paperwork.
Navalny's supporters referred to as on folks throughout Russia to protest, turning out to vote all on the similar time at midday on Sunday in every of the nation's 11 time zones.
They introduced the motion “Midday towards Putin” as a means for folks to precise their opposition with out the chance of arrest, as they may line as much as vote legally. The Kremlin has warned folks towards attending unauthorized gatherings.
Putin, 71, will surpass Soviet chief Josef Stalin and change into Russia's longest-serving chief since 18th-century Empress Catherine the Nice if he serves one other six-year time period.
Beneath constitutional adjustments that voters authorized in 2020, he would then be eligible to run once more, doubtlessly extending his reign to 2036. (Reporting by Reuters, writing by Mark Trevelyan, enhancing by Man Faulconbridge)
