See Putin: My successor will be elected by the people through elections

President Vladimir Putin said only the Russian people would choose who would succeed him in the presidential race through the election process.
In March next year, presidential elections will be held in Russia. Putin has not said whether or not he will be a candidate but is widely expected to stand for a fourth term.
"The successor to the president will be decided by the Russian people only during a democratic election and no one else," Putin said during a meeting in the Kremlin.
The Russian president was responding to a war veteran's question in Afghanistan that he complained that a well-known Russian senator told everyone that Vijsezel Bolintin, the president of the Duma, the lower house of the parliament, would soon be president.
Bololdin, 53, is a former Kremlin man and enjoys great visibility as President of the Duma.