2024-03-17 18:56:07
Vladimir Putin, 71, in power for almost a quarter of a century, was largely and unsurprisingly re-elected as President of Russia, according to the first official results.
Despite symbolic demonstrations by a few thousand opponents at midday in front of certain polling stations, the Russian president was re-elected with 87.8% of the vote, according to an exit poll carried out by the Russian Center for Research on Politics. public opinion (VCIOM).
Vladimir Putin thus obtains a new six-year mandate and should ultimately surpass Joseph Stalin in longevity in the Kremlin.
Turnout was officially estimated at 74.22% at 6 p.m. UT when polling stations closed, a rate higher than the 67.5% in the previous election in 2018.
The vote – which lasted three days – began on Friday at 8 a.m. (local time) on the Kamchatka Peninsula and in Chukotka, two remote regions of the Russian Far East, and ended on Sunday at 8 p.m. in Kaliningrad , a Russian enclave bordering the European Union.
“Noon against Putin”
The outcome of the vote was in little doubt in the absence of a credible rival among the three other candidates, especially since the main opponent of the Russian president, Alexeï Navalny, died in detention last month.
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An electoral premises in Sergiev Posad, north of Moscow.
Photo: afp via getty images / ALEXANDER NEMENOV
Supporters of Alexeï Navalny had called the Russians to a noon against Putin by all going to the polling stations in the middle of the day.
Yulia Navalnaïa, his widow, took part in a demonstration in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Germany, where she voted.
I wrote [sur le bulletin de vote] the name “Navalny” because it is not possible […] that a month before the elections, Putin’s main opponent, already imprisoned, was killed, she explained to the press after voting.
3:48
Explanations from our special correspondent in Germany, Marie-Eve Bédard.
It was impossible to independently estimate the scale of participation in this protest since tens of thousands of police and law enforcement officers exercised strict control over the voting process.
Shortly after the counting of the first polling stations, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed Vladimir Putin’s resounding victory on Sunday.
Dmitri Medvedev is now number 2 on the Russian Security Council. He held the presidency from 2008 to 2012, with Putin as prime minister, as the latter was affected by term limits.
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Dmitry Medvedev, former President of Russia and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, votes during the Russian presidential election in Moscow region, March 15, 2024.
Photo: AFP / YEKATERINA SHTUKINA
State television, for its part, highlighted the colossal support enjoyed by the master of the Kremlin.
For its part, Alexeï Navalny’s team denounced the score on Sunday, a few minutes after the announcement of the counting of votes from a quarter of the polling stations.
The percentages invented for Putin obviously have no relation to reality. It’s not worth talking about it, reacted on Twitter Leonid Volkov, former right-hand man in exile of the deceased.
Zelensky denounces a sham
This election took place against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, ordered in February 2022 by Vladimir Putin with the launch of a special military operation in this country.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to react to the initial results which declared Putin the clear winner. These days, the Russian dictator is still faking an election. It is obvious to everyone in the world that this character, as has often happened throughout history, is drunk with power and does everything to rule eternally, he wrote on the social network X.
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Ukraine’s Western allies also denounced elections that were neither free nor fair.
The White House National Security Council spokesperson argued that Putin had imprisoned his political opponents and prevented others from running against him, while the German Foreign Ministry claimed that Putin’s regime is authoritarian [et qu’]it is based on censorship, repression and violence.
In a message broadcast on the X network, the head of British diplomacy, David Cameron, denounced the illegal organization of elections on Ukrainian territory, the lack of choice for voters and the lack of control independent of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE].
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A man votes in the Russian presidential election at a polling station in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 16, 2024.
Photo : AFP / STRINGER
77 arrests in Russia
Overall, the mobilization of the opposition took place calmly, but the NGO OVD-Info, specialized in monitoring repression, reported at least 77 arrests in Russia for various forms of electoral protest actions.
The spokesperson for Russian diplomacy, for her part, affirmed that the voters who gathered en masse at Russian embassies, such as in Paris, London and Berlin, were not supporters of the opposition.
They came to vote, seizing the opportunity that their country, Russia, offered them despite all the threats from the West, Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.
With information from Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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