Putin crows over his sham election win
THOUSANDS gathered in Moscow’s Red Square yesterday to hear Vladimir Putin speak following his sham election result.
He thanked the crowds for their support, after claiming a landslide victory that saw him secure a fifth term as Russia’s president.
The rally in the capital was to mark the tenth anniversary of the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
Putin described the Donbas and other parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces as part of a ‘New Russia’ and said Crimea had returned to its ‘home harbour’.
On Sunday it was announced the Russian leader would be extending his rule by another six years after receiving more than 87 per cent of the vote, according to the state election commission. He faced no credible opposition as the Kremlin tightly controls the political system, media and elections.
Putin’s most outspoken critics and main opponents are either dead, in jail or in exile.
In his victory speech in front of flag-waving crowds, he vowed to prioritise Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine and scorned US democracy. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the election result ‘starkly underlined the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war’.
He added: ‘Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy.’
Amid worldwide condemnation of the polling results, Germany called it a ‘pseudo-election’, while Washington said the vote was ‘obviously not free nor fair’.
The EU denounced the election, saying Russia’s vote took place amid ‘systemic internal repression’. Both France and Germany said they would not congratulate him.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin was ‘drunk with power’ and ‘doing everything to rule for ever’. In Russia, banned opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta claimed that voting patterns indicated every second vote the Kremlin recorded for Putin was fraudulent.
Meanwhile Golos, an independent Russian vote monitor, issued a report warning: ‘Never before have we seen a presidential campaign that fell so far short of constitutional standards.’
However, China congratulated Putin, as did Iran, Belarus, Venezuela and Cuba.
Putin, 71, has been in power for 24 years and has already led Russia longer than any ruler since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who spent almost 31 years in power.
Russia’s constitution was amended in 2020, increasing the presidential term from four to six years.
Theoretically, Putin could seek a sixth term and continue until 2036, which would keep him in power longer than Catherine the Great, who ruled as Empress of Russia for more than 34 years.
‘The vote was not free nor fair’