Putin heads for big win in fraud-tainted Russian vote
Vladimir Putin headed to an overwhelming win in Russia’s presidential election Sunday, adding six years in the Kremlin for the man who has led the world’s largest country for all of the 21st century.
The vote was tainted by widespread reports of ballot-box stuffing and forced voting, but the complaints will likely do little to undermine Putin. His popularity remains high despite his suppression of dissent and reproach from the West over Russia’s increasingly aggressive stance in world affairs and alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Putin’s main challenge in the election was to obtain a huge margin of victory in order to claim an indisputable mandate. With ballots counted from 60 per cent of the vast country’s precincts, Putin won more than 75 per cent of the vote, the Central Elections Commission said.
In a short speech to a throng of thousands of supporters near Red Square late Sunday, Putin hailed those who voted for him as a “big national team,’’ adding that “we are bound for success.’’
Russian authorities had sought to ensure a large turnout to bolster the image that Putin’s so-called “managed democracy’’ is robust and offers Russians true choices. By 7 p.m. Moscow time, authorities said turnout had hit nearly 60 per cent.
Putin had faced seven minor candidates on the ballot. His most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred from running because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated. Navalny and his supporters had called for an election boycott but the extent of its success could not immediately be gauged.
The election came amid escalating tensions between Russia and the West, with reports that Moscow was behind the nerveagent poisoning this month of a former Russian double agent in Britain and that its internet trolls had mounted an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Britain and Russia last week announced tit-for-tat diplomat expulsions over the spy case and the United States issued new sanctions.
Russian officials denounced both cases as efforts to interfere in the Russian election. But the disputes likely worked in Putin’s favour, reinforcing the official stance that the West is infected with “Russophobia’’ and determined to undermine both Putin and traditional Russian values.
The election took place on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, one of the most dramatic manifestations of Putin’s drive to reassert Russia’s power.
Crimea and Russia’s subsequent support of separatists in eastern Ukraine led to an array of U.S. and European sanctions that, along with falling oil prices, damaged the Russian economy and slashed the ruble’s value by half. But Putin’s popularity remained strong, apparently buttressed by nationalist pride.
In his next six years in office, Putin is likely to assert Russia’s power abroad even more strongly. Just weeks before the election, he announced that Russia has developed advanced nuclear weapons capable of evading missile defences. The Russian military campaign that bolsters the Syrian government is clearly aimed at strengthening Russia’s foothold in the Middle East and Russia eagerly eyes possible reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula as a lucrative economic opportunity.
At home, Putin must face how to groom a successor or devise a strategy to circumvent term limits, how to drive diversification in an economy still highly dependent on oil and gas, and how to improve medical care and social services in regions far removed from the cosmopolitan glitter of Moscow.
Casting his ballot in Moscow, Putin was confident of victory, saying he would consider any percentage of votes a success.