MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russian environmentalist Green party plans to nominate a candidate for the 2018 Russian presidential election at a meeting in November, the party Chair Anatoly Panfilov told Sputnik on Monday, adding that the nominee is likely to be a woman.
"We will hold a party meeting when the presidential election will be announced. Of course, we have a candidate. We have a young man, a very active person, and a woman, she is a parliamentarian. Yes, we will, of course, nominate a candidate. The session devoted to the nomination will be carried out after the election is announced in November, just five to ten days after it. It is likely to be a woman," Panfilov said expressing confidence that "a woman should, of course, participate" in the presidential election.
Panfilov explained that the party’s possible candidate is Rufina Shagatova, a member of parliament from Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan and deputy chair of the parliament’s committee for ecology.
Last week, local media reported that several women could become candidates for the upcoming election.
At the same time, United Russia political party may decide to support the candidacy of Vladimir Putin at the party congress if he decides to run for the presidency in 2018, party's General Council secretary Sergei Neverov said Monday.
"When the elections will be announced, if a decision would be taken in the party about these actions, of course, this will also be done at the congress," Neverov told press conference answering the corresponding question.
The secretary, answering reporters' questions about the date of the congress, said that firstly this issue would be discussed with the party's chairman and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
"Maybe on the 10th [of September] during the summing up of the results we will agree when we announce the date of the congress," Neverov said.
The party supported Putin's candidacy during the previous presidential elections in 2012.
The Russian presidential election is set to take place in March 2018.
