ReutersVotes are counted in Moscow
NOS News•Sunday, 8:55 PM•Adjusted Sunday, 10:38 PM
As expected, Vladimir Putin received a record percentage of votes in the unfree presidential elections in Russia, according to the official exit poll. This means he can start a new six-year term.
The electoral commission has now awarded victory to Putin. Based on the exit poll, he received 87.8 percent of eligible voters in the election, which was far from fair. The new term allows the 71-year-old Putin to remain in office until 2030. This would make him one of the longest-ruling leaders in the Kremlin in the past 200 years.
High attendance
Candidates critical of the president, such as Boris Nadezhdin, were banned from the ballot. Putin’s three opponents, the communist Nikolai Charitonov, the right-liberal Leonid Slutsky and Vladislav Davankov, leader of the New People Party, each received about 3 to 4 percent of the votes, according to the exit poll. All three are loyal to the current president.
AFPThe candidates on a screen, from left to right: Davankov, Putin, Slutsky and Kharitonov
The turnout in these tightly orchestrated elections was striking. It was already at 67.5 percent around noon, higher than the total turnout in 2018. In 2012, according to Russian figures, 65.3 percent of eligible voters showed up. When the polling stations closed, the turnout for these elections stood at 74.22 percent of the 114 million eligible voters.
Correspondent Geert Groot Koerkamp:
“It is an exit poll that was announced by an agency loyal to the Kremlin. Now it remains to be seen whether the real result will also be as high in Putin’s favor. Locally, in the east of the country, it is like that, and sometimes the percentages are even higher.
For the time being, the high figures confirm the prediction of a record result for Putin. That result should show that he has the support of the vast majority of Russians. This had to be proven by the high turnout, and both expectations seem to have come true.
The figures are impossible to independently verify and there are no independent observers to monitor the ‘elections’. According to the election commission, there are as many as 1,100 foreign observers, but we do not know who they would be. Previous elections have always involved large-scale fraud.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in custody, had called on voters to flock to the polling station around noon in a symbolic political protest. Thousands of people seemed to respond to the ‘noon hour against Putin’ action. There were long lines at some polling stations in Moscow and other cities around noon.
After the expressions of support for the excluded opposition candidate Boris Nadezhdin and the funeral of Navalny, it was the third time in a short time that critics could make themselves heard in a legal way, without risking years in prison.
Many who took part in the action cast an invalid vote by scrawling on their ballot paper with slogans such as ‘no to the war’. Some placed their ballots among the flowers around Navalny’s grave.
Protests also took place outside Russia. There were also long lines at Russian embassies in many European capitals and opponents of the Kremlin had brought signs and banners with slogans against Putin. In Berlin, Navalnaya took part in the protest.
In the video you see images of the queues in Russia; swipe to see what it was like at the embassy in The Hague:
During the evening, Putin responded to the result, cheered by supporters. He said it shows “how Russia has chosen the right course.” “This victory will allow Russia to become stronger and more effective,” the president said, explaining the result as confidence and hope from Russians. “We are a united family.”
Putin said he was confident that his government’s plans would be implemented: “I will do everything to achieve the tasks and goals that we consider important.” During a subsequent press conference, he hinted at changes in the Russian government. “We will decide who will be most effective in which place.” He did say that “generally” the government is “quite effective.”
Putin praised the Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. According to him, Russian forces have the initiative and are “gaining ground every day.”
He also responded to the ‘Noon Against Putin’ protest. The president thanked organizers for their call to vote, stating that the action had had no effect and that those who defaced their ballots should be prosecuted.
International reactions to ‘pseudo-elections’
Critical reactions are coming from abroad to the first results of the presidential elections. “The election is clearly not free and fair,” a White House spokesperson said, “given the way Mr. Putin has jailed political opponents and prevented others from standing against him.”
According to Ukrainian President Zelensky, Putin is a dictator “who simulates his election”. “It is clear to everyone in the world that this figure, as has happened many times throughout history, is simply sick of power and is doing everything he can to rule forever. This imitation of elections has no legitimacy and That is not possible. This person should be tried in The Hague.”
A spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry mentions “pseudo-elections”. “The outcome will not surprise anyone. Putin’s rule is authoritarian, he relies on censorship, repression and violence.” The Polish Foreign Ministry states that the polls took place “under conditions of extreme repression, which made a democratic choice impossible.”
The British Foreign Office, like the German ministry, has criticized the fact that voting was also possible in the Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine. “By illegally holding elections on Ukrainian soil, Russia is showing that it is not interested in finding a path to peace. Britain will continue to provide humanitarian, economic and military assistance to the Ukrainians defending their democracy.”