The president has not decided on running for a new term in office, his spokesman revealed
FILE PHOTO: Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin during the inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin. © Sputnik / Alexander Astafyev
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not made a decision on whether he will run for re-election in 2024 when the country is set to vote for the next head of state, the Kremlin spokesman has said.
Dmitry Peskov answered “no” when a reporter asked him about the matter on Wednesday.
Putin is currently in his fourth term as president. The national constitution sets a limit of up to two consecutive terms. He held the presidency between 2000 and 2008 and has been in office again since 2012, with Dmitry Medvedev serving a single four-year term in between.
The country has changed its constitution on several occasions in its modern history. The original five-year term was reduced to four years in 1993, under President Boris Yeltsin, but increased to six years in 2008. The first presidential election for the newly increased tenure was held in 2012.
In 2020, Russia held a referendum on the most recent round of constitutional amendments, which included extending term limits. It was approved, opening the way for President Putin to potentially stay in power until 2036.
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Putin neither confirmed nor denied an ambition to do so. When he was asked about it during the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club in October 2020, shortly after the amendments came into force, he said he was well aware that “this has to end at some point.”
“What happens in 2024, or later – that needs to be seen when the time comes,” he added.
The amendments, Putin explained, “were not aimed at giving the incumbent head of state the right to be re-elected in 2024” but rather to update the constitution and strengthen national sovereignty.
