Russian lawmakers passed measures to permit elections to take place under martial law, as the Kremlin prepares for a series of regional votes and a potential fifth presidential term for Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) — Russian lawmakers passed measures to permit elections to take place under martial law, as the Kremlin prepares for a series of regional votes and a potential fifth presidential term for Vladimir Putin amid the war in Ukraine.
Governors of regions where martial law has been declared will be able to request that elections are held, according to the legislation passed by the State Duma on Thursday. The Central Election Commission would then decide whether to approve a vote after discussions with Russia’s Defense Ministry and the FSB security service.
Lawmakers said the aim is to enable four areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia to take part in regional elections in the fall that mark the start of a campaign season leading to the presidential vote scheduled for next March.
Putin imposed martial law in those areas in October, weeks after announcing that Russia had annexed them. He also signed an order putting Russia’s central district, which includes Moscow and regions surrounding the capital, on a state of “high alert” as well as areas in the southern district near the border with Ukraine.
The amendments remove an existing ban on elections under martial law, Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the Duma’s committee on state-building, said on the legislature’s website. They’ll now go to the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, before being sent to Putin to be signed into law.
Russia is due to hold gubernatorial and local legislative elections in at least 20 regions in September.
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While he hasn’t yet indicated whether he’ll run in 2024, Putin overhauled Russia’s constitution in 2020 to allow him to seek a further two six-year terms that would keep him in power until 2036.
With Ukraine’s military preparing a counteroffensive aimed at pushing Russian troops out of the occupied east and south of the country, Putin risks approaching the election mired in a war that’s already in its 15th month.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in March there were no plans to declare martial law in Russian regions, state-run Tass reported, following an attack by an alleged Ukrainian sabotage group in the Bryansk region near the border with Ukraine.
The new law allows the authorities “freedom of maneuver,” said Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation. Officials will be able to “hold elections where it will be decided to hold them from presidential elections to elections in the Russian-controlled parts” of Ukraine and “to have the opportunity not to hold them if they don’t want to,” he said.
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