President Putin will run again in the 2018 election. He wants to be the czar of this new Russian empire that he is rebuilding. I think he is really obsessed with the idea.
As far as I know, the people who are against my candidacy now have the upper hand in the Kremlin. They say: Who knows what the election result will be? We already made that mistake once. And they are also afraid of all the things I would say if they let me run.
For 17 years, elections in Russia have followed the same pattern: Nobody criticizes Putin, nobody runs a real election campaign, the whole process takes place quietly over a period of two months. The Kremlin blocks every alternative to Putin. He doesn't want a candidate who will travel through the country and speak loudly about Russia's problems.
No opposition politician has ever taken responsibility for his or her election failures.
After Trump's election victory, I explained why there would be no friendship between Putin and Trump. The contradictions between the systems are too great. And Putin needs an enemy. He wants to be the leader of the anti-American, anti-European world. And given that he cannot be friends with their heads of state and government, he instead needs to generate scandals and resistance.
In Russia an authoritarian leader is running the country. You can't fight Putin with elections because he controls them. That's why demonstrations are the most effective approach. Unfortunately Russia has sunk to this primitive level.
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