RUSSIA: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia's most popular leader in years, said yesterday he would run for a second term next March, and dismissed suggestions he would change the constitution to stay longer.
Odds-on favourite in the contest, Mr Putin made his widely expected announcement in a three-hour televised phone-in programme, less than two weeks after his allies scored a crushing victory in parliamentary elections. "Yes, I am going to run," he said in the carefully scripted show, fielding questions from ordinary Russians who were mostly gathered before television cameras in snow-covered town squares.
"I intend to make an official declaration on this matter soon," he added.
He rejected outright the notion by some analysts that the constitution might be altered to keep him in office beyond 2008.
"I disapprove," he said, placing a written question from a viewer firmly on the table. "I am against anyone, whoever he might be and however laudable his intentions might be, violating the constitution."
Nearly four years after emerging from relative obscurity to take over from Russia's first president, Mr Boris Yeltsin, President Putin remains highly popular, with ratings of over 70 per cent. One recent poll said he was the most popular leader in Russia's history, after the 18th century ruler, Peter the Great.
Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and conservative tie, President Putin reassured Russians he was tackling their day-to-day problems of low pay, crumbling housing, insufficient benefits and the bullying of their sons in an inefficient army. He told viewers, many earning well below the official average monthly wage of $185, that greater use of home loans would make life easier, as would dismantling huge monopolies.
With Mr Putin runaway favourite, opposition parties have threatened to spoil the occasion by boycotting the vote. The Communist party and two liberal parties were heavily defeated in the December 7th parliamentary election which handed victory to pro-Putin parties amid accusations that the Kremlin exploited state-controlled media.