‘ Candidate’ Putin says he faces no credible leader

struggling to assert her authority since losing her parliamentary majority in a disastrous snap election in June.

Ms May is expected to tell leaders over dinner on Thursday — she will not be at the summit for the Brexit session on Friday — that the interim deal “required give and take by both sides, but a fair outcome has been achieved”, a senior British government official said. Moscow, Dec. 14: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he faced no credible high- profile political opponents as he prepared to run for reelection in March, but would work to try to create a more balanced political system.

Mr Putin, whom critics have accused of using state TV, the courts and the police to demonise and marginalise the liberal opposition, said earlier this month he would run for re- election in March 2018 — a contest he seems sure to win comfortably and extend his grip on power into a third decade.

But in a sign the former KGB officer is keen to strengthen his role as a father of the nation figure rather than as a party political figure, Mr Putin said he planned to run as an independent candidate and garner support from more than one party.

The ruling United Russia party has traditionally backed Mr Putin and is likely to do so again this time, but Mr Putin clearly wants to generate a higher turnout by styling himself as someone who is above the often grubby fray of Russian party politics.

Mr Putin said it was too early to set out his electoral programme, but named priority issues, aside from helping forge what he called a flexible political system, as nurturing a high- tech economy, improving infrastructure, healthcare, education, productivity and increasing people’s real incomes.

Mr Putin, 65, has been in power, either as President or Prime Minister, since 2000, longer than veteran Soviet leader Leonid Brezhney and outstripped only by dictator Josef Stalin. If he wins it would be a fourth presidential term.