Opposition figurehead Aleksey Navalny has declared the intention to contest the Russian presidency in 2018.
"In a little more than a year from now the country will see a presidential election. It took me a while to figure out if I should participate," Navalny said in a video message placed on the website of his nomination campaign. "I have arrived at the conclusion I will. I will participate in the Russian presidential election race."
Opposition firebrand Alexei Navalny now free to run for president
He believes that such a decision would be useful for the country and for each specific individual, including those who do not share his ideas. He promised to present a decent program for the nation’s development to the electorate.
In Nomember, the Presidium of Russia’s Supreme Court overturned Navalny’s conviction in the Kirovles case and ordered retrial at a court in the city of Kirov. For the time being Navalny is free to participate elections. The sentence in the Kirovles case is not Navalny’s only one, though. On Dec. 30, 2014 a court in Moscow handed him a suspended 3.5-year prison sentence for stealing money from a Russian subsidiary of the Yves Rocher cosmetics company.
By now only one more Russian politician, former leader of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, has declared the wish to seek the Russian presidency.
Source: TASS