ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – The Russian people will choose one of the four presidential candidates officially registered with the Central Election Commission (CEC) this week.
The Russian Presidential Election will start from Friday 15 March to Sunday 17 March 2024. Apart from President Vladimir Putin, who is running as an independent candidate, there are also other candidates who are his rivals, including Leonid Slutsky from the Liberal Democratic Party, Nikolai Kharitonov from the Communist Party, and Vladislav Davankov from the New People Party.
Putin is expected to win easily after eliminating the opposition and the Kremlin handpicking his opponents in the election.
The following is a profile of Vladimir Putin’s rivals in the Russian Presidential Election.
Leonid Slutsky
Leonid Slutsky was last week nominated as a presidential candidate by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in the March 2024 presidential election.
Leonid Slutsky was born January 4, 1968, in Moscow, Russia. He is known to have two daughters, but Slutsky is very secretive about his personal life. Slutsky began his career working for Russia’s Supreme Soviet.
Of course, his networking skills have played an important role in Leonid Slutsky’s political journey. In an interview in 2015, he described his ability to make friends as his best quality.
In 2016, Slutsky was appointed chairman of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, largely due to personal support for Putin made by Zhirinovsky.
As chairman of the committee, Slutsky has worked hard to legitimize the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the various international delegations he brought to the peninsula, most notably a group of French parliamentarians in 2015. For this, he is seen as his main achievement in the role.
Despite having been a member of the State Duma for more than 20 years, Slutsky has never proposed any major legislation, he rarely makes controversial statements, and his positions have always been aligned with those of the Kremlin.
Vladislav Davankov
The next candidate, Valdilav Davankov, is the youngest presidential candidate to run in the Russian presidential election this year. Davankov will just turn 40 years old in 2024.
Davankov was born in Smolensk into a military family. After graduating high school, he moved to Moscow and studied history at Moscow State University. Later, Davankov completed his second degree and doctorate in sociology.
After completing his studies, Davankov worked as a manager at businessman Alexey Nechayev’s cosmetics company, Faberlic, and became vice president in 2013.
Davankov also took part in various Nechayev projects. In 2018, he took over as deputy general director of the Russian non-profit organization Land of Opportunities, founded on the initiative of Vladimir Putin.
The project was supposed to be an open platform for communication and exchange of talented, socially engaged people.
Still in the same year, Alexei Nechayev became Putin’s deputy in the presidential election. Two years later, in 2020, he founded the New People Party. One of its founders was Davankov, who later headed the party’s Central Executive Committee and the 2021 State Duma election campaign.
At that time, for the first time, the New People Party participated in the parliamentary elections to the Russian State Duma. In its campaign platform, the party advocated succession, a ban on anyone holding the same office more than twice (including president), reducing the cost of state administration, reform of the interior ministry, and the abolition of repressive censorship laws.
The New People Party managed to pass the 5% threshold and get 13 seats in parliament. Vladislav Davankov won one of the seats as deputy chairman of the State Duma and joined the budget and taxes committee.
Nikolai Kharitonov
Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, 75, has been a member of the State Duma since 1993. He ran for president in 2004 and managed to finish second with about 13% of the vote.
In his campaign platform, Kharitonov advocated lowering the retirement age, raising pension payments, and increasing support for large families, relying on older voters who traditionally support the Communist Party.
He also suggested implementing a progressive tax system and ending membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other international organizations that he believed could advance Russia’s economic sovereignty.
However, Kharitonov was also placed under sanctions by the United States (US), European Union and United Kingdom after the start of the full-scale invasion. (AT Network)
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