Putin wins fourth term with 74% vote: Exit poll
RESULT With little opposition, the Russian President will stay in power till 2024
MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential election on Sunday with almost 74% of the vote, according to an official exit poll, with the opposition reporting ballot stuffing and other cases of alleged fraud.
Putin, who has ruled Russia for almost two decades, stood against seven other candidates, but his most vocal critic Alexei Navalny was barred from the ballot for legal reasons and the final outcome was never in doubt.
The Kremlin was hoping for high voter numbers to give greater legitimacy to Putin’s historic fourth term as Russia faces increasing isolation on the world stage over a spy poisoning in Britain and a fresh round of US sanctions. About 107 million Russians were eligible to cast votes and the central election commission said turnout was 60% after authorities used both the carrot and the stick to boost participation.
Selfie competitions, giveaways, food festivals and children’s entertainers were laid on at polling booths in a bid to create a festive atmosphere. But employees of state and private companies reported coming under pressure to vote while students were threatened with problems in exams or even expulsion if they did not take part, according to the opposition-leaning Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
The exit poll by state-owned pollster VTsIOM at 1,200 voting stations around Russia projected that Putin had won 73.9% of the vote, up from 64% six years ago.
Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin performed better than expected, with 11.2%, but the results of all other candidates including former reality TV host Ksenia Sobchak were forecast to be in single figures.
Navalny, who called on his supporters to boycott the “fake” vote and sent over 33,000 observers across the country to see how official turnout figures differed from those of monitors, there had been “unprecedented violations”. His lawyer Ivan Zhdanov said the actual national turnout at 1700 GMT, when polls closed in Moscow, was 55%, according to data collected by monitors.
Navalny’s opposition movement and the non-governmental election monitor Golos reported ballot stuffing, repeat voting and Putin supporters being bussed into polling stations en masse.
Since first being elected president in 2000, Putin has stamped his total authority on the world’s biggest country, muzzling opposition, putting television under state control, and reasserting Moscow’s standing abroad.
The 65-year-old former KGB officer used an otherwise lacklustre presidential campaign to emphasise Russia’s role as a major world power, boasting of its “invincible” new nuclear weapons in a pre-election speech.
Casting his ballot in Moscow, Putin said he would be pleased with any result giving him the right to continue as president.