Who will be Russia's new president?

In March 2018, Russia will vote to elect the next president. The uncoherent winner may seem to be incumbent President Vladimir Putin, who over the past two decades has been president and once prime minister. But a recent poll by the Levada Centre, which is independent, found that more than a quarter of Russians are undecided about who they will vote for, while Putin has not yet declared his candidacy, saying they will think about whether to compete.

But who will run against him, and how popular are these people? In Russia there are more than 100 political parties, but only six are represented in parliament. United Russia is far from the largest, which is led by Putin, followed by the Communist Party, the Liberal-Democrat Party, the Party apart from Russia, Rodina and by the Party for Civic Platforms.

With the backing of the communist Party, Garon Gennady Zyuganov, a 73-year-old who has led his party since 1993. Zyuganov has been part of Russian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did not support the break-up of the USSR and government reforms that former leader Mikhail Ghorbachev undertook, and it has been quite radical in recent years. He has repeatedly criticised the rise in economic inequality and lobbied for a return to Socialist rule. He has been racing for president four times, even being close to defeating Boris Yeltsin. Current support for it is about 2%.

Another challenger is Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Jirinovsky. The latter is described as Donald Trump's Russian version. It is known for extreme nationalist and populist views combined with a wild and impulsive style in anti-American rhetoric. He had once started a clash in parliament by spiting out the leader of another party and promising to shoot his political officers if the president was elected in 2018. He has even asked for the construction of a wall across Russia to keep the Muslims out, and in the 2016 elections Donald Trump had given support. While it is widely known that this party is neither liberal nor democratic, it is simply fascist. In fact, it is supposed to be positioned as a false opposition party by the KGB in order to get the votes of the Russian ultra-right wing. Dzirinovski, too, has 2% support.

The latest, and perhaps the most serious, is Alexei Navally, leader of the Party for Progress, who has no seats in parliament. Navalny is one of the biggest critics of Vladimir Putin and corruption in Russia. He has called for a decentralisation of power in the government, changing the republic's form to parliamentary, and also requires the separation of the trial from the president's influence. He has been repeatedly arrested by Russian authorities, for the last time on October 2nd of this year, for the call for citizens to join a co-ordinated “anti-corruption co-ordinated projector. Some believe that the announcement of candidacy by prominent TV figure Kseniya Sobchak is Putin's way of controlling the opposition during the elections, without really threatening his chances for victory. Navalny in the polls has 1% support.

Clearly, there is no real diversity of elections for the future Russian president. It is important to note that public voices of opposition to Putin are very unpopular and at times at risk. Authorities regularly follow independent media and dissidents. And even if Russian President Putin chose not to run for another mandate, which is something unusual, most Russians have said they would vote for any candidate who gets Putin's support. And while the Russian league allows a president to have only two mandates in succession, Putin has overcome this challenge as prime minister, which guarantees him to be in power until death.

So who will be the new Russian prime minister? I think we all know the answer. Nowthiesworld ? Periscope