Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that he did not rule out the possibility of running again for president in 2012.

"A while ago, I had no intention of running for the presidency, but fate has so decreed that I am not ruling out anything," he told members of the Valdai discussion group when asked about plans for the next presidential election.

At a meeting with the Valdai club last Friday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin indicated that he might run for the presidency in the 2012 presidential polls, but said he would not compete with Medvedev.

Medvedev, Putin's hand-picked successor, came to office in May last year, and Putin became prime minister a day later, with the pair pledging to run the country in "tandem."

Medvedev last November proposed extending the presidential and parliamentary terms from four years to six and five years respectively. The bill was signed into law last December after being approved by the parliament.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2009)

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