Russian President, Vladimir Putin, registered as a candidate for the March 17 presidential elections, in which he will run for a fifth six-year term as head of the Kremlin, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced today.

The decision adopted by the Central Election Commission states that on January 29 at 11:23 a.m. Vladimir Putin was registered as a candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation. Born in 1952.

The Election Commission stated that detected only 0.15% of invalid signatures (91) – the maximum acceptable level is 5% – among 60,000 analyzed.

Putin’s team reported a few days ago that collected more than two million signatures, although the Kremlin opposition questions this, since, according to them, no one saw queues in front of the presidential administration throughout the country.

The current Russian leader, who has led this country since 2000 – with a four-year break as prime minister (2008-2012) – running as an independent candidatebut received the support of the Kremlin’s United Russia party, which controls both houses of the Russian parliament.

Although he publicly stated that he would not do this, Putin reformed the Constitution in 2020 to allow him to stand for re-electionwhich he can do again in six years and thus remain in the Kremlin until 2036.

Putin, 71, whose administration is approved by 80% of Russians according to official polls, must win the election with more votes than in 2018, when he received more than 76% of the votes

At the moment, the CEC has registered three candidates: communists Nikolai Kharitonovultranationalist Leonid Slutsky and representative of Gente Nueva, Vladislav Davankov.

The only candidate who opposes the Russian military campaign in Ukraine and has a chance of winning registration is a liberal. Boris Nadezhdin, received support from the opposition in prison and exile.

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Nadezhdin, who needs 100 thousand signatures to participate in the presidential elections, It already has more than 200,000 that will be submitted on January 31, the final day of the deadline, according to its website.

However, analysts are pessimistic because the Kremlin then told the independent press that will not allow a pro-peace candidate to stand in the elections.

(EFE)