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Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that he will run for his fourth presidential term of office.
The election is due to hold in March 2018.
While addressing workers and veterans at the country’s historic manufacturer, GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod), in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod on Wednesday, Putin said: “Yes, I will run as a candidate for the Russian presidency.
“Our country is its people, people like you. It’s workers, scientists, engineers, designers, teachers and doctors”.
He added that with the “active involvement” of its people, Russia “can deal with any, even the most complex challenges it faces.”
“Russia will go only forward and no one will ever stop it,” he also said.
The upcoming election will be the fourth in Putin’s political career. He held the office of president for two terms from 2000 to 2008, and served as prime minister from 2008 to 2012 when Dmitry Medvedev was President. Putin then won a third term as president in 2012.
In December 2008, Russia amended its constitution by raising the number of years in a presidential term from four to six years. The new system started in 2012.
If he wins in the 2018 election, Putin would have been Russia’s leader for 24 years, 20 years as president and four years as prime minister.
Several other people, including an unprecedented number of women, have announced their candidacy for the 2018 elections. They include Liberal-Democratic Party head Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov, the liberal Yabloko party’s Grigory Yavlinsky, journalist and singer-songwriter Ekaterina Gordon, celebrity and activist Ksenia Sobchak, and business ombudsman Boris Titov.