Putin expected to easily win election as campaign begins

Campaigning officially started on Monday for Russia’s presidential election in March, in which President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win a fourth term that would keep him in power until 2024.

Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta published a resolution adopted by the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, scheduling the election for March 18.

Lawmakers had voted earlier to change the date of the March vote so that it will mark the fourth anniversary of the signing of a treaty formally taking Crimea peninsula back.

Putin, who was first elected to the presidency in 2000, is widely expected to sail to victory, cementing his status as Russia’s longest-serving president.

The head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, said she was ready to hold the vote “at the right level.”

“We will control [the election] during all the stages,” she said at a news conference, adding that the commission had been allocated more than $298 million for the presidential campaign.

Formerly a human rights ombudsman, Pamfilova was appointed the country’s top election chief in March 2016 to replace the scandal-tainted official who oversaw the 2011 parliamentary election.

Putin will run against a motley crew of opposition candidates, though even the Kremlin has acknowledged that none of them stand a chance against Putin.

“There are other candidates but Putin, of course, has the most chances,” his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this month.

“The level of support from the people that he has is inaccessible to other candidates.”

One of the potential candidates is Ksenia Sobchak, a former socialite turned liberal TV presenter.

Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, respectively the longtime leaders of Russia’s Communist Party and ultraconservative LDPR, have both indicated a desire to run.