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Firebrand Russian politician campaigns to redo Kremlin, bring back Tsarist symbols

The LDPR chief plans on "building a country without Communism, Nazism, racism, or authoritarianism"

© Vyacheslav Prokofiev/TASS

MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is going to enter the 2018 presidential election race with a political platform containing 100 points, among its highlights are pardons, the humanization of criminal legislation, establishing military courts to fight crime, and whitewashing the Kremlin walls.

The LDPR circulated the text of its political campaign program on Thursday. It said earlier it would nominate Zhirinovsky as its candidate for Russia’s presidency. This will be his sixth race to become Russia’s head of state since 1991.

The title of the program is "One Hundred Steps: Time for a Great Thrust Forward". Zhirinovsky specifies his objectives as "putting things into order and helping each family attain affluence, rather than subsistence."

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"Affluence for everyone should be our main objective while a job, an apartment and free healthcare should be the main guarantees," the program says.

As one of the first steps after getting into presidential office, Zhirinovsky promises to issue Russian passports "to all [ethnic] Russians" and to protect their fellow-countrymen living abroad."

"I will not let anyone abroad tear children away from Russian families," he vowed.
The list of top priority measures also includes amnesty and the humanization of the Criminal Code. In order to fight crime, Zhirinovsky suggested creating military tribunals and ending the moratorium on capital punishment.

He also promises to work hard so that "no one from the ‘South’ [an obvious reference to the Caucasus and Central Asia - TASS] could commit crimes in the center of Russia.’

"Special focus will be given to the anti-corruption struggle," the program says. "Officials will be discharged and their properties confiscated if they take bribes, while business people will be obliged to pay triple of what they stole."

Zhirinovsky plans on "building a country without Communism, Nazism, racism, or authoritarianism", branding any revolutions as pure evil, returning old names to cities, and naming a street in Moscow in honor of Ivan the Terrible.

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