Vladimir Putin has been granted the authority to stay in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for a package of constitutional changes which will also boost pensions, partial results of a nationwide vote showed on Wednesday. In the partial results of the vote to make constitutional changes announced five hours before polls closed., the Central Central Election Commission said just over 70% of votes counted across the world`s largest country had supported changing the constitution, 29% had voted no out of the 2.68% of ballots counted.
Results, after almost a third of ballots had been counted, indicated that the former KGB officer who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister would easily win the right to run for two more terms. It is to be noted that he had already ruled Russia for more than 20 years as President or Prime Minister.
However, Putin has not mentioned anything about term extension in his eve-of-vote speech on Tuesday. But political experts say that he would be allowed to run for another two six-year consecutive stints after his current term expires on 2024. On January 15, Russian former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his cabinet resigned hours after President Vladimir Putin announced sweeping constitutional changes. According to the Russian constitution, presidents can serve only two consecutive terms.