Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law paving the way for him to run for two more presidential terms, potentially extending his rule until 2036.
Putin, who turns 69 this year, is currently serving his fourth presidential term. The new legislation could allow him to serve two more six year terms, should he choose to stand for and win re-election both times.
If elected both times, he would remain president until 2036, surpassing Josef Stalin as the longest-serving leader of Russia since Peter the Great.
Under the previous constitution, Putin who has already been in power for more than two decades, would have been required to have stepped down after his second consecutive term ends in 2024. But amendments approved by Russians in a nationwide vote last year allow him to run for two more six-year presidential terms. The amendments were passed by the State Duma in late March.
Putin, who will be 83 in 2036, already served two consecutive terms as president from 2000 till 2008, when he had to step down according to the rules of the previous 1993 constitution. He then served two terms as prime minister — with many observers saying he was still president in all but name — before being reelected to the presidential post in 2012 and 2018.
Previously, Putin’s efforts to stay in power — including a job swap with his then prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2008, returning to the presidency in 2012 — have attracted mass protests and criticism from overseas.
Earlier this year, thousands of people protested across Russia over the jailing of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, who was detained in January on return to the country five months after he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
Anti-corruption campaigner Navalny has been a constant thorn in Putin’s side for years now, with a recent video purporting to expose an extravagant secret palace on Russia’s Black Sea coast he said was built for the President attracting millions of views on YouTube.
Navalny was flown to Germany for emergency treatment following his poisoning in Siberia last year, which he says was ordered by Putin and carried out by agents of Russia’s security service, the FSB.
