Russians pave way for Putin to extend his rule till 2036

The initial results of a nationwide vote in Russia on Wednesday showed that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to stay in power until  2036.

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.

If the vote goes in the favour of constitutional amends, the former KGB officer is likely to be elected 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.

In order to make the constitutional amends, the Russian President said during his speech to both chambers of the parliament that a national referendum would take place which would significantly shift power from the Presidency to the Prime Minister and the parliament.

According to the Russian constitution, presidents can serve only two consecutive terms.