78% of voters back extending Putin’s rule in official vote
MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Thursday hailed as a triumph the result of a nationwide vote that handed President Vladimir Putin the right to run for two more terms, but an independent monitoring group said the vote had not been free and the outcome was flawed.
Final results after the weeklong vote showed that nearly 78% of voters had backed changes to the constitution allowing Putin potentially two more six-year terms after his current one ends in 2024.
That means that the 67-yearold former KGB officer, who has ruled Russia for over two decades as either president or prime minister, could be in power until he is 83.
Already the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Josef Stalin, Putin says he has yet to decide on his political future, though critics say they are sure he will try to stay in the Kremlin for as long as he can.
Some analysts believe he may however be keeping his options open so as not to become a lame duck before 2024.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said the emphatic nature of the nationwide vote was a measure of how deeply Russians trusted Putin to run the country. “It’s definitely considered a triumph. What took place was in effect a de facto triumphant referendum on trust in Putin,” said Peskov.
Putin’s approvals rating stood at 60% last month, still high but hovering around just above a two-decade low after slipping in April amid the coronavirus crisis and related economic pain, a poll by the Levada Center showed.
Opposition activists have called the vote illegitimate and said it was designed to legalise Putin’s presidency for life.