MOSCOW (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law that will allow him to retain power until 2036, a measure that formalizes constitutional changes approved in a vote last year.
The July 1 constitutional vote included a provision that restored the previous limits of Putin’s term, allowing him to run for president twice more. The change was stamped out by the Kremlin-controlled legislature and the relevant law signed by Putin was posted on an official legal information portal on Monday.
The 68-year-old Russian president, who has been in power for more than two decades – longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin – said he would decide later whether to run again in 2024 when his current six-year term ends.
He has argued that restoring the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work rather than “launching in search of possible successors.”
Constitutional amendments also emphasized the primacy of Russian law over international norms, banned same-sex marriage, and mentioned “belief in God” as a core value. Nearly 78% of voters approved the constitutional amendments during the week-long vote, which ended on July 1. The turnout was 68%.
Following the vote, Russian lawmakers have methodically amended national legislation, passing relevant laws.
The opposition criticized the constitutional vote, arguing that it was tainted by widespread reports of pressure on voters and other irregularities, as well as a lack of transparency and obstacles hindering independent control.
In the months following the vote, Russia has jailed the country’s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny.
Navalny, 44, was arrested in January when he returned from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that the Kremlin blames. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
In February, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the conditions of his parole while convalescing in Germany. The sentence comes from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has dismissed as fabricated and which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled illegal.
His team claims Navalny had lost a substantial amount of weight even before starting a hunger strike on Wednesday to protest because authorities did not provide adequate treatment for his back and leg pain.
Navalny complained about the refusal of prison officials to give him the proper medications and to allow his doctor to visit him. He also protested the hourly checks that a guard does at night, saying they are sleep deprivations.
In an Instagram post Monday, Navalny said three of the 15 people in his room in the penal colony were diagnosed with tuberculosis. He noted that he had a strong cough and a fever of 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 Fahrenheit).
On Monday, the Izvestia newspaper published a statement from the state penitentiary service saying Navalny was being taken to the prison colony’s health unit after a checkup found him with “signs of a respiratory illness, including a high fever. “.
In an acid note, Navalny said he and other inmates studied a tuberculosis prevention warning that stressed the importance of strengthening immunity with a balanced diet, a piece of advice that contrasted with a prison ration of “porridge in the form of tuberculosis. glue and frozen potatoes “.