Putin's Protege

The complete list of candidacies running for the position of the Russian president will finally be exposed before the end of this month. Experts say that neither former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov nor the leader of the Democratic Party of Russia, Andrei Bogdanov, will pass the registration. According to experts’ estimates, candidacies of only three parliamentary parties will fight for votes in March of 2008.

Putin’s protege, Dmitry Medvedev, who has already earned the reputation of Russia’s next president, already started to perform some of his would-be functions. Following Putin’s example, Medvedev attended a church on Christmas night for a standing service on December 7.

Candidates from three parliamentary parties were registered at the end of 2007. Two independent nominees, Mikhail Kasyanov and Andrei Bogdanov, launched their campaigns to collect two million signatures in their own support. The signatures will have to be submitted to the Central Election Commission not later than January 16, where they will be checked during the following ten days.

Andrei Bogdanov’s pre-election campaign experiences a shortage of funds. The law stipulates the maximum of 400 million rubles for election campaigns of presidential candidates. Bogdanov can boast of raising only ten percent of the required amount. A half of this money will be spent to collect signatures, which makes it obvious that Bogdanov will not be able to compete with other runners. “It is just honorable to be a presidential candidate in Russia. It is important to get registered so that our candidate would be mentioned in mass media as a serious politician,” an official spokesman for Andrei Bodganov’s election team said. . . . . . .

Read the full story [here]

The next election in Russia appears to already be over, with Dmitry Medvedev as president. Since Putin will be leaving office, he has passed the torch to his "political partner" Medvedev. The people have seen Medvedev already taking up sought after role of president by attending gatherings and other social events. No other candidate in Russia even comes close to the lead in poles that Medvedev currently holds . He seems to have the same ideas as Putin, and has the approval of the countries people from his former role of Prime Minister and from working closely with Putin for around 17yrs.

If anyone was hoping for change in Russia due to this election, that chance is very slim. With Putin becoming Prime Minister and Medvedev becoming the new president, everything the two have worked together to accomplish will only move forward.