Russia will set the date for presidential elections before the end of the month, the president of the upper house of parliament Sergei Mironov said in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant published yesterday.
"In line with the Russian constitution the Council of the Federation will set the date of the presidential election on Nov. 26," he said.
The paper said the vote would probably be held on March 2. The campaign for the presidential poll will start five days after the publication of the council's decision.
PHOTO: AP
Under the Constitution, Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot stand for a third term when his current term ends early next year.
Mironov said there was "no legal base to extend Vladimir Putin's powers. It is very late to change the Constitution," he added.
Putin announced on Oct. 1 that he would run for parliament in December heading the United Russia list and have a "realistic" shot at becoming prime minister, dropping a political bombshell that many thought could herald a fundamental change in the way Russia is governed.
Mironov said a victory of the United Russia party in the Dec. 2 elections to the State Duma "will give Vladimir Putin a moral right to take a more active part in domestic politics or to influence in a certain way foreign politics."
Putin has repeatedly said he will not change the Constitution for his own purposes, but insists that he will continue to be useful to the Russian people without saying how.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe announced Friday that it would send a skeleton crew of observers to cover Russia's December parliamentary elections, after Moscow said it would allow only 70 observers, compared with the 400 sent for parliamentary elections in 2003, said the organization's office responsible for monitoring elections.
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged so-called middle powers to become a “poisonous shrimp” to carve out strategic economic leverage in a more turbulent global environment. Sunak drew from a metaphor by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀): A big fish will eat a smaller fish, and the smaller fish will eat the shrimp. Lee made the point a year after the Asian nation’s independence in 1966 that the city-state needed to build up its defense mechanisms — like a shrimp that stings — so it would be left alone by predators. “He was thinking about what Singapore’s
POLL POSITION: Democrats criticized the timing of the raid, saying that the US justice department historically avoids public investigations within 60 days of an election Federal agents on Monday searched the home of Democratic US Representative Ilhan Omar, a startling escalation in a criminal investigation that brings renewed focus to the frequent target of White House derision in the final weeks of her re-election bid. The search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home so close to next month’s midterm contests that would determine control of the US House and the Senate was swiftly condemned by top Democrats in Congress, who raised questions about the timing given longstanding US Department of Justice (DOJ) protocol to avoid overt investigative steps involving political candidates in the direct run-up to an
A Rhode Island pumpkin grower appears to have broken the world record for the heaviest pumpkin, with his giant squash topping the record by nearly 136kg. Ron Wallace of Greene, Rhode Island, weighed his pumpkin on Saturday at a contest in New England and is waiting for the Guinness World Records to confirm he smashed the record, set about a week earlier by a grower in England. Wallace said he has been in contact with Guinness officials who say his record is on track to be verified. “It’s truly massive, it was a pleasure to grow,” Wallace said on Monday. Guinness World Records lists
BUILDUP: The report comes as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi boosts defense spending in the face of China’s military expansion and the North Korean threat French defence contractor Thales will establish a maintenance and operational support base in Japan in what is seen as the first such move by a foreign firm in the country, a report said yesterday. Thales chairman and CEO Patrice Caine told the Nikkei business daily that the base “will mark a milestone toward Thales’ long-term engagement in Japan.” It is believed to be the first time a foreign defense company has established a dedicated base in Japan for the maintenance and operation of Japanese defense equipment, the Nikkei said. It added that Thales might also expand its Japan-based business to
RSS