Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he would support amending the constitution to enable him to run for re-election.
The measure would need to be approved by Russia’s Constitutional Court, Putin said in a televised speech to the lower house of parliament.
Putin, 67, has been in power as president or prime minister for two decades. He is the longest serving Russian or Soviet leader since Joseph Stalin.
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Putin said in the speech that he did not support a proposal to eliminate the limit on the number of presidential terms.
The Russian news agency Interfax reported meanwhile that a draft amendment to enable Putin to seek another term had been submitted for consideration by parliament.
The constitution in its current form allows a president to serve for two consecutive terms, meaning that Putin would have to leave the presidency in four years.
Putin served two terms as president from 2000 to 2008, and then came to the presidency again in 2012 and was re-elected in 2018.
Earlier on Tuesday, a well-known lawmaker, Valentina Tereshkova, a former cosmonaut who in the early 1960s became the first woman in space, proposed eliminating the limit on the number of presidential terms.
“I propose either removing the limit on presidential terms” or making it so that Putin or any other citizen could run for election as head of state, said Tereshkova.
The motion was promptly supported by the leading political party, United Russia, which dominates the legislature. NAN
