A combination picture shows candidates in the Russian 2018 presidential election, (top, L-R) Vladimir Putin, Pavel Grudinin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Ksenia Sobchak, (bottom, L-R) Grigory Yavlinsky, Sergei Baburin, Boris Titov, Maxim Suraikin.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin won a fourth presidential term with almost 77 percent of the vote – his highest score ever and a massive mandate to pursue his nationalist, assertive policies for another six years in power.
Putin’s fourth term as president will extend until 2024, the first Kremlin leader to serve two decades in power since Josef Stalin.With results still coming in, Putin is looking to surpass expectations by clinching more than 73 percent of the vote.
The residents of Moscow who made a decision to cast their votes for a presidential candidate and vote on the address of permanent residence registration may choose the most convenient polling station among 3,605 ones, only taking their passports along with.
Crimea and Russia’s subsequent support of separatists in eastern Ukraine led to an array of USA and European sanctions that, along with falling oil prices, damaged the Russian economy and slashed the ruble’s value by half.
Opposition candidate Grigory Yavlinsky claimed that showing documentaries about Putin during the campaign violated the rules because “these films are propaganda that tell us that Russian Federation can have no other president but Putin”.
He pointed to the extensive media coverage given to Putin on tightly controlled state-run television, the main source of political information in Russian Federation.
The eight presidential candidates were barred from campaigning Sunday, but much-loved entertainers appealed to voters in a televised message aired throughout the day to fulfill their civic duty and go to the polls. They suspended the chief of a polling station near Moscow where a ballot-stuffing incident was reported and sealed the ballot box.
“It’s not something you can argue about”, she said at a cafe yesterday. “It’s a photographic report for our bosses”. An additional 1.8 million voters were abroad, and 369 polling stations were based overseas.
Asked if he thinks he is being watched, he said: “Of course, a lot of people who work for FSB are around, of course”.
Yevgeny Roizman, mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city, Yekaterinburg, said local officials and state employees have received orders “from higher up” to make sure the voter turnout is over 60 percent.
“There is no intrigue”. “The program that I propose for the country is the right one”, he said.
Turnout was at 34.7 percent by 1235 GMT, official data showed.
The elections “were to some extent unfair and undemocratic”, he said.
Opposition activists said they had also witnessed voters being bussed to polling stations by police and discount coupons being given to Russians who turned out to vote.
His most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was rejected as a presidential candidate because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated.
Many Russians believe he has restored stability after the chaos that ensued after the Soviet Union collapsed.
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The Kremlin’s spokesman has unveiled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans following his re-election; he also spoke about the country’s current relations with the United Kingdom in the wake of Skripal’s poisoning, which London has blamed on Moscow. They also say those alleging the election was rigged were biased against Russian Federation.
