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Kremlin official says no discussion yet of candidates for presidency in 2018

“We speak about future, of course, but not as distant as that,” Ivanov said

MOSCOW, October 1 (Itar-Tass) - There are no discussions in the Kremlin yet on who will run for presidency in the 2018 election, Sergei Ivanov, the chief of Kremlin Administration staff said in an interview published Tuesday by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda, RBC Daily, and Gazeta.ru

“There are no grounds yet to speak about the 2018 elections in earnest,” Ivanov said adding that he believed the so-called Kremlinology was a false science.

“I do understand writing about it with an air of sagacity is part of your job but please believe neither I myself nor anyone else in the Administration are mulling over who will be Russia’s President in as distant a future as 2018.

“There’s a very wise Russian saying: we yet have to live through to that,” Ivanov said, recalling that a whole five years are separating October 2014 and the next presidential election.

“Do you really think that the President /Vladimir Putin/ and I sit at the table and discuss what might happen in 2018?” he said. “The President and I mostly discuss the current issues, which may take any imaginable turns.”

“We speak about future, of course, but not as distant as that,” Ivanov said.

He said he could not agree with the opinion that there is a person number two in Russian politics today.

“I think there’s no number two,” Ivanov said. “And who can be number two? A backup cosmonaut of a kind?”

“I wouldn’t say I have a shortage of personal influence but I am quite satisfied with it,” Ivanov said.

He spoke evasively enough about his own plans, including the plans for the 2018 presidential election.

“I’ve been asked the question for thirteen years already, and now you’ll be asking every year if one or another personality will be running for the office at the next election,” Ivanov said.

Along with it, he agreed with the interviewers that Russia’s recent history had seen a case of the chief of Kremlin Administration staff becoming a president. This was done by Dmitry Medvedev, the incumbent Russian Prime Minister.

When the reporters asked Ivanov to assess his career in general, he said: “I don’t have any career for quite some time because it has ended.”

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