Vladimir Putin won a widely expected reelection on Sunday with over 87% of the vote, facing only three token opposition candidates, with other potential opponents banned from running.
To no one’s surprise, President Vladimir Putin secured another six years in power in a preordained election landslide that comes amid the harshest crackdown on the opposition and free speech since Soviet times.
The three days of balloting, in which Putin faced three token contenders but none offering voters any real choice, went ahead with barely any independent monitoring and were marked by a level of pressure unseen in previous Russian elections. That left little room for protests, but some Russians still tried to defy authorities.
Some key takeaways from the election:
PUTIN WAS IN FULL CONTROL OF THE ELECTION
The Central Election Commission said Putin received 87.28% of the vote, the highest number for any president in post-Soviet Russia. It said turnout was 77.44% of the electorate, also the biggest. Others on the ballot all finished in single digits, and anti-war candidates were not allowed to run.
The state news agency RIA Novosti said the vote «as expected … took place in an atmosphere of unprecedented national unity.»
There was no video from CCTV cameras at polling stations depicting voter fraud or ballot-box stuffing -– access to the footage was more heavily restricted than in previous elections -– and hardly any independent monitors were on hand to document irregularities.
There still was voter intimidation, however, according to Golos, Russia’s prominent independent election watchdog, noting it received reports of citizens being pressured to vote in over 60 Russian regions. On Sunday, voters were searched at polling stations, and some reported police checking their ballots before they were cast or peering over their shoulder while they filled them out, Golos said.
