Russian President Vladimir Putin has won a convincing election victory, qualifying for a fifth term as head of state, the country’s electoral commission said on Monday.
Putin was re-elected for a term until 2030, receiving the support of 87.32 percent of voters with 99.36 percent of votes counted, the Central Election Commission claimed.
Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov came second with 4.32 per cent of the vote, followed by New People’s representative Vladislav Davankov with 3.79 per cent of support, while ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky came fourth with 3.19 per cent.
In the previous presidential election in 2018, Mr. Putin’s official result was 78 per cent of the vote.
After summarising the preliminary results, which gave him his biggest election victory since coming to power in 2000, Putin thanked Russians for their support at the polls. The head of the Kremlin said:
“First of all I want to thank the Russian citizens. We are all one team. All the citizens who went to the polling stations and voted.”
Putin emphasised that the high level of participation, the highest since 1991, is closely linked to the conflict in Ukraine. He added:
“This is related to the fact that we are forced, in the literal sense of the word, to defend the interests of our citizens with weapons in hand.”
In a victory speech in Moscow, Putin told his supporters that he would prioritise tackling what he called Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian army. He said:
“We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated – no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us – nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future.”
Reuters journalists noticed an increase in the flow of voters, especially young people, at midday at polling stations in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, where queues numbered several hundred or even thousands. Some voters interviewed in Moscow said they were proud to have voted for Mr. Putin. They said the president had turned Russia into a prosperous, respected world power.
The midday queues were even longer in cities with a large Russian diaspora, such as Belgrade, Serbia, and Yerevan, Armenia, where the Russian Embassy served as a polling station. By 1 p.m. in Berlin, the voting queue stretched for about a mile through the city streets and ended just beyond where a sign indicated the location of Hitler’s World War II bunker.
