# Vladimir Zhirinovsky 2018 presidential campaign

* This article is part of a series aboutVladimir Zhirinovsky
Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
1992–2022
Early life
Political positions
Elections
Electoral history
1991 (campaign)
1996 (campaign)
2000 (campaign)
2008 (campaign)
2012 (campaign; donkey video)
2018 (campaign)
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The 2018 presidential campaign of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, deputy of the State Duma and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, was announced on 28 October 2016. Zhirinovsky was officially nominated on 20 December 2017 at the Liberal Democratic Party's 31st annual congress. He submitted to the Central Election Commission the documents required for registration the next day.
According to Mikhail Degtyarev, Zhirinovsky planned to hold the largest campaign in the history of the party. The party's objective was to get Zhirinovsky into the second round, and then win it.

## Background

In June 2015, Zhirinovsky said he planned to participate in presidential elections, but in July of the same year, the politician said that the Liberal Democratic Party, perhaps "will pick a more efficient person." In March 2016, he announced the names of those who were likely to be nominated as the candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party. This included Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Igor Lebedev or deputies Mikhail Degtyarev, Yaroslav Nilov and Alexei Didenko. However, later, Zhirinovsky said that he will run himself.
Zhirinovsky was running for president for the sixth time. Previously he was a candidate in the elections of 1991, 1996, 2000, 2008 and 2012. His best result was in 2008 when he achieved 6,988,510 votes (9.5%), finishing third.

## Campaign

As part of his election campaign Zhirinovsky visited Volgograd and laid flowers on the statue for the Battle of Stalingrad and also met with students. On 24 November 2017, the website of the Liberal Democratic Party published Zhirinovsky's program, which is called "100 Steps: It's Time to Make a Powerful Leap Forward!"

## Proposed Cabinet

On 19 February 2018, Vladimir Zhirinovsky presented a part of the shadow cabinet, which would have needed to be appointed in the case of a victory of Zhirinovsky in the election.
In total, the Cabinet includes more than 50 people, in addition to members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the office of three Deputy Prime Ministers reserved for other parliamentary parties, as well as from 3 to 5 vacancies for representatives of other parties and representatives of the professional community.
| Office | Image | Name | Party |
| Prime Minister | | Alexey Ostrovsky | Liberal Democratic Party |
| First Deputy Prime Minister | | Alexei Didenko | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Deputy Prime Minister – Chief of Staff of the Government | | Sergey Natarov | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Deputy Prime Minister for social affairs | | Lyudmila Kozlova | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Deputy Prime Minister | Vacant | Vacant | Communist Party |
| Deputy Prime Minister | Vacant | Vacant | United Russia |
| Deputy Prime Minister | Vacant | Vacant | A Just Russia |
| Minister of the Interior Affairs | | Sergey Abeltsev | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | | Leonid Slutsky | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Minister of Labour and Social Affairs | | Yaroslav Nilov | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Minister of Tourism | | Mikhail Degtyarev | Liberal Democratic Party |
| Minister of Agriculture | | Pavel Grudinin | Independent |

## Position
### State structure

Vladimir Zhirinovsky is an ardent critic of the modern state structure of Russia.
In particular, Zhirinovsky criticized the Federal structure of Russia. In his opinion, Russia should be a unitary country that consists of 40 Governorates.
Zhirinovsky is a wrestler with foreign words in the Russian language, so he proposes to rename the office of President to the Supreme Ruler.
Zhirinovsky also proposes to reduce the number of members of the State Duma from 450 to 200 and to abolish the Federation Council.

### Foreign policy

In foreign policy, Zhirinovsky intends to pursue an aggressive policy, but normalize relations with the West.
In particular, Zhirinovsky promises to return the Russian border as of 1985. According to him, it will happen through demanding referendums in former Soviet republics. At the same time, Zhirinovsky promises that will be able to normalize relations with the United States. He says he exchanged all options to America agreed that the Russian army will stand on the borders of the USSR as of January 1, 1985.

### Other

Zhirinovsky has advocated for Volgograd to again be renamed Stalingrad, not because of his ideological position but out of respect for history.

## Trip

In January 2018 Vladimir Zhirinovsky scheduled visits to about 10 major cities. He planned to meet with voters, to visit industrial and agricultural enterprises and sports facilities. In addition, he planned to visit about 30 cities on campaign trains of the Liberal Democratic Party. According to Degtyarev, Zhirinovsky's trips were planned to involve his supporters from the stage, such as a Na Na band, Aleksey Goman, and Katya Lel.

## People

A campaign manager was appointed the Deputy of the State Duma Alexei Didenko. Deputy campaign manager for the ideological part was Mikhail Degtyarev. Yaroslav Nilov is appointed the curator of special events and projects during the campaign. He will coordinate the work with large social groups, the believers, the disabled, motorists and pensioners.