The president himself previously reported that he had not made a decision whether to run for the next presidential election or not.
On Monday, April 5, the official portal of legal information published a package of amendments to the legislation signed by President Vladimir Putin, including amendments to the federal law “On elections of the President of the Russian Federation.” The amendments bring the document into line with the amendments to the Constitution adopted last year.
The new version sets out a clause about who can be elected president: a Russian citizen at least 35 years old, permanently residing in the country for at least 25 years and does not own foreign citizenship or residence permit. The requirement for the absence of citizenship of another state does not apply to Russians who were previously citizens of a country that was fully or partially accepted into Russia.
It is also indicated that a person who has worked in this position for two terms does not have the right to be elected president. But the law prescribes not to take into account the number of terms that the president worked at the time the amendments to the Constitution came into force.
An amendment to the Basic Law, which would nullify presidential terms, which would allow Putin to run for president again, was proposed in March 2020 by Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut, a United Russia deputy. The President supported the proposal on the condition that citizens vote positively for the package of amendments to the Constitution.
The voting took place in the summer of 2020. According to the CEC, 77.9% of those who voted were in favor of the amendments, 21.2% against, with a turnout of 67.97%.
In order to bring the legislation in line with the approved amendments to the Constitution, a bill allowing Putin to go to the polls again was submitted to the State Duma in November. The lower house of parliament adopted the draft law on March 24, and a week later the law was approved by the upper one.
In addition to the zeroing of presidential terms, the amendments to the Constitution also include the inviolability of ex-presidents, the introduction of the term “senatorship for life”, a new procedure for appointing and approving ministerial candidates, and expanding the powers of the Constitutional Court.
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