Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has not ruled out that he would run for president again if Russians support his return to the Kremlin.
“I am not an old politician yet,” Medvedev said in an interview with the Times newspaper in London where he attended the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 27. The Times published the interview on Monday.
“I have never ruled out that I would run for president in the future (and I am not planning to quit politics soon), if Russians are interested in this,” he said in the interview, according to the Russian-language transcript published on Medvedev’s official website.
“If our people get bored and they say ‘goodbye’ to me, I will sit and write memoires,” Medvedev added.
Medvedev served one term as Russia’s president from May 2008 until May 2012 when he was replaced by Vladimir Putin, who returned to the Kremlin after four years as prime minister.
According to the latest survey conducted by the state-run VTsIOM pollster on July 21-22, Medvedev is trusted by 23 percent of Russians, as opposed to Putin’s 47-percent trust level.
Medvedev said in his interview he believed it was too early both for him and his United Russia party to lessen their involvement in politics.
“I am now in the middle of my political life, I work a lot and will keep doing the same in the future,” he added.
When Putin became president, Medvedev took over the official leadership of the United Russia party, whose image was badly damaged by allegations of widespread vote rigging in last year’s parliamentary elections. The party’s public approval rating now stands at 44 percent, according to VTsIOM.
