(DailyAnswer.org) – The Kremlin approved two of Putin’s challengers on January 5th as the country approaches the March 2024 national election. Vladislav Davankov of the New People’s Party and Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party were both added to the ballot for the vote, which will occur on the 15 – 17th of March. Davankov currently serves as Deputy Head of the Duma, and previously ran for mayor of Moscow in 2023 for the center-right New People’s Party. Leonid Slutsky of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party has been acting as a member of Russia’s negotiation team since the invasion of Ukraine and stated in May 2022 that Azov Battalion members captured by Russian troops in the war do not deserve to live.
Eight candidates were announced by January 8th, including Putin himself, Pavel Grudinin, a strawberry tycoon backed by the Russian Communist Party, veteran post-Soviet politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, TV celebrity Ksenia Sobchak, entrepreneur Boris Titov, and Maxim Suraikin of the Communists of Russia. Of the approved candidates those arguably most vocally against Putin’s regime were Sergei Baburin, of the nationalist Russian All-People’s Union, who has commented on corruption in Russian politics, and liberal Grigory Yavlinsky, who opposes the Russian annexation of Crimea.
Russia has barred former journalist Yekaterina Duntsova from standing, citing mistakes in documents as the reason. Duntsova had made ending the war in Ukraine and freeing political prisoners central focal points of her campaign. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal against the decision. Putin’s main political rival Alexei Navalny after an unsuccessful campaign in 2018 was arrested in 2021 and moved to the IK-6 jail in Melekhovo, east of Moscow, in 2023. He was reported missing in December 2023 after failing to show up for a scheduled court appearance. Friends of Navalny, who leads the Russia of the Future party, claimed they had not heard from him in several days when the alarm was raised.
The parties of both Slutsky and Davankov have been largely supportive of Putin in parliament, backing legislation passed by his United Russia party, and do not appear to pose much threat to Putin’s rule as president, which lasted from 2000 to 2008 and then again from 2012 to 2024.
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