Putin claims win in Russia as opposition cries foul
MOSCOW — In an outcome long predicted, Russian voters overwhelmingly granted Vladimir Putin a six-year term as president on Sunday, setting the stage for a far more suspenseful postelection confrontation between Putin and opposition groups that have called for another major street protest to- day.
Putin has been Russia’s pre - eminent leader for 12 years, having served two terms as president from 2000 to 2008 before his current term as prime minister. But the prospect of more protests, starting with a rally tonight in Pushkin Square in central Moscow, threatened to undercut his promise of stability.
With some opposition leaders now calling for protests beyond those allowed by government permits, the prospect of a sharp response from the authorities loomed.
Anti- corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny said he would lead an unsanctioned march to the Kremlin after today’s rally and he has called for a permanent encampment of demonstrators like those created by some of the Occupy movements in the West. “People need to go out on the streets and not leave until their demands are met,” he said Sunday.
Early returns showed Putin winning about 60 percent of the vote, comfortably above the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Not long after the polls closed in Moscow, tens of thousands of Kremlin supporters gathered in Manezh
Square for a victory celebration and concert.
The voting took place under heightened vigilance, thanks to a disputed parliamentary election in December that helped set off the huge opposition protests. On Sunday, thousands of election observers took up posts across the country, most of them — in accordance with Russian election law — aligned with a candidate.
By some tallies, there were more than 3,000 complaints of violations, including “carousel voting,” in which the same people cast ballots at multiple locations, and “centralized voting” in which managers of factories, schools, hospitals and other large organizations pressure employees to vote for a specific candidate. In some cases, ballots were collected at the workplace. There was no expectation, though, that the complaints or improbable tallies would alter the results.
Even with opinion surveys showing Putin well-positioned to win the presidency, the political playing field has been Russia’s most unstable since 1996, when President Boris N. Yeltsin was forced into a second-round runoff by the Communist leader, Gennady A. Zyuganov.
Zyuganov, who was a candidate again this year, declared the results illegitimate even before all the votes were counted. “It was illegitimate, unfair and not transparent,” he said. “I will not congratulate anyone.”
Many voters said they were ambivalent, indicating a general sense that there was no viable alternative to Putin. Voter Natalia I. Bazlova, 57, said, “I share his views but looking at his rivals, I also don’t see any other option. He is the most reliable. Putin is our stability.”
Putin’s victory never seemed in doubt. He faced three well-worn opponents he had defeated in the past — including Zyuganov — and one newcomer, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, a billionaire industrialist and owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, who mustered the 2 million signatures to get on the ballot but had no party to support him and no political experience.
With the exception perhaps of Prokhorov, little attention was paid to Putin’s opponents: Zyuganov, 67, running for the fourth time as the Communist leader; Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, 65, running for the fifth time as the leader of a nationalist party; and Sergei M. Mironov, 59, of the Just Russia Party who simultaneously ran against Putin and endorsed him in 2004.
Tatiana Zorina, 59, who collects a pension but still works, said she voted for Putin. “He is stable,” she said. “Life has become a little better.”