Members of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) on Tuesday nominated their leader and State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky as the party’s candidate for Russia’s 2024 presidential race.
A total of 106 out of the 111 delegates present at the party’s congress in Moscow voted to nominate Slutsky — who stood unopposed during Tuesday’s vote — as LDPR’s presidential candidate.
“Our key platform is that all regions should enjoy an equal standard of living and social guarantees,” the State Duma deputy said after accepting the nomination.
But Slutsky later told reporters he “won’t take away votes from the President of Russia,” predicting that Vladimir Putin would “win by a huge margin” in next year’s election.
“I won’t call to vote against Putin. A vote for Slutsky and LDPR is absolutely not a vote against Putin,” the lawmaker said.
The state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported that Slutsky would formally file his candidacy with the elections commission later this month.
LDPR has struggled to maintain relevance since the death of its longtime leader Vladimir Zhirnovsky — a six-time presidential candidate — at the age of 75 in April 2022.
Slutsky, 54, was first elected to Russia’s lower-house State Duma in 2000.
Last year, was appointed as one of Russia’s negotiators in failed peace talks with Kyiv after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Several journalists and a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in 2018 accused Slutsky of sexual harassment. The State Duma deputy denied the accusations.
Earlier this month, the investigative news outlet The Insider reported that Slutsky had passed information about foreign academic and religious figures who were invited to Russia at his behest to the Russian intelligence services.
The pro-Kremlin ruling party United Russia over the weekend endorsed President Vladimir Putin as an independent candidate in the 2024 election, a race he is certain to win.
AFP contributed reporting.