Putin seeks Kremlin return to defy protests

Russians voted on Sunday in elections expected to see Vladimir Putin reclaim the Kremlin for a historic third term in the face of protests by the opposition bitterly contesting his 12 years of strongman rule.

Moscow police have drafted in thousands of extra officers into the capital for the elections, which the opposition has said will be followed by a new anti-putin protest expected to rally tens of thousands of people. Voters from Vladivostok on the Pacific to the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic cast their ballots in a marathon election stretched over 21 hours in which victory for 59-year-old exKGB spy Putin appears inevitable.

The main suspense is not the final result but whether Putin can win easily in the first round against his four rivals and if allegations of vote-rigging will spark a succession of protests to seriously challenge him.

For some voters Putin is the man who saved Russia from descending into anarchy and poverty after the chaos of the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin. But for others he has suppressed civil society and long overstayed his welcome. Some voters expressed anger at being offered no real choice in a vote that pits Putin against four weaker candidates - communist Gennady Zyuganov, nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, former parliamentary speaker Sergei Mironov and billionaire met- Russia's Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin votes in a polling station in Moscow. (AFP) als tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov. Others said Putin, who has portrayed himself as a man of action, was the tough national leader Rus- sia needed.“i will of course vote for Putin. Who else is there?,” said Mikhail, a university student in Vladivostok, a port city of 600,000 on the Pacific coast. (Compiled from AFP and Reutersreports)