‘He’s a killer, he’s a gangster’: What six more years of Putin means
Russian President Vladimir Putin basked in an election victory early Monday that was never in doubt, as partial election results showed him easily securing a fifth term after facing only token challengers and harshly suppressing opposition voices.
With little margin for protest, Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon on Sunday, on the last day of the election, apparently heeding an opposition call to express their displeasure with Putin. Still, the impending landslide underlined that the Russian leader would accept nothing less than full control of the country’s political system as he extended his nearly quarter-century rule for six more years.
What are the latest Russian election results?
According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, Putin had 87 per cent of the vote with about 90 per cent of precincts counted.
Three other candidates from parties loyal to the Kremlin offered no serious competition in the tightly controlled election. Communist Nikolai Kharitonov took 4.2 per cent, Vladislav Davankov from the New People, a party created in 2020, was on 4 per cent and Leonid Slutsky, leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, trailed with 3.2 per cent, according to Central Election Commission data.
The true extent of the Russian public’s support for Putin, however, is hard to know, with restrictions placed on independent poll observers at levels not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The restrictions have seen this election declared the least transparent in recent Russian history.
Turnout from three days of voting was put at 74.2 per cent. That’s the highest since Boris Yeltsin became president in 1991 after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and well above the 67.5 per cent turnout recorded in 2018. At least six Russian regions claimed turnout was above 90 per cent.
There was no independent tally of how many of Russia’s 114 million voters took part in the opposition demonstrations, amid tight security involving tens of thousands of police and security officials.
United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations have also said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
What does Vladimir Putin’s re-election mean for Russia?
The outcome means Putin, 71, is set to embark on a new six-year term, during which he will surpass Josef Stalin to become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years if he completes it.
Putin hailed the results as an indication of “trust” and “hope” in him, while critics saw them as another reflection of the preordained nature of the election.
“Of course, we have lots of tasks ahead. But I want to make it clear for everyone: When we were consolidated, no one has ever managed to frighten us, to suppress our will and our self-conscience. They failed in the past, and they will fail in the future,” Putin said at a meeting with volunteers after polls closed.
For Russians, there will be a continuation of what already exists under Putin’s leadership. Any public criticism of Putin or his war in Ukraine has been stifled, independent media have been crippled, his fiercest political foe, Alexy Navalny, died in an Artic prison last month, and other critics are either in jail or in exile.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been re-elected in what he said was a sign of the country's trust in him.
What is the mood like amongst Putin’s opposition?
Among those heeding the call to protest was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, who spent more than five hours in the line at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. She told reporters that she wrote her late husband’s name on her ballot.
Asked whether she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: “Please stop asking for messages from me or from somebody for Mr Putin. There could be no negotiations and nothing with Mr Putin, because he’s a killer, he’s a gangster.”
But Putin brushed off the effectiveness of the apparent protest.
“There were calls to come vote at noon. And this was supposed to be a manifestation of opposition. Well, if there were calls to come vote, then ... I praise this,” he said at a news conference after polls closed.
What does Putin’s re-election mean for the war in Ukraine?
Pavel Danilin, head of the Moscow-based Centre for Political Analysis, which advises the Kremlin, said the election outcome “gives Putin every chance to implement any, even the toughest, scenarios in Ukraine.”
Putin used his victory speech to send a warning to the West about its involvement in Ukraine, saying that direct conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.
Asked about the possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO, Putin quipped: “Everything is possible in the modern world.”
“It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin said.
Putin also spoke of creating a buffer zone out of more Ukrainian territory to help defend Russia in the future and claimed to be ready to talk about a French proposal for a ceasefire during the 2024 Olympics. Only last week however he dismissed any talk of pausing fighting that would allow Ukraine to rearm.
Is Russia’s presidential election rigged?
The Kremlin secured the result through “electoral manipulation and fraud,” said Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The goal was to show that Russian society is united behind Putin’s “long-term fight against not just Ukraine but the West and the liberal international order more broadly.”
To achieve this, only a Kremlin-approved list of candidates, headed by Putin were on the ballot paper and two anti-war candidates were disqualified on technical grounds.
The Kremlin ordered polling stations to stay open for three days and made state workers vote. Polling stations encouraged other voters with free food, raffles and entertainment. Voters were obliged to register at their polling stations using their passports and also tell a website built by United Russia, Putin’s political party, that they had voted.
Putin voted online Friday, avoiding the traditional visit to a polling station that he’s made in past presidential elections. The government said more than 4.5 million people registered to vote via a system used for the presidential ballot in 29 of Russia’s regions for the first time.
Critics say the system may make it harder to identify fraud in the results.
Russia didn’t invite observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the election. The OSCE said in January this was evidence that “democratic backsliding” had reached a critical point.
Despite the predictability of the vote, Russian officials are in no mood to admit shortcomings in the election.
“We won’t tolerate criticism of our democracy any longer,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a youth conference in Moscow earlier this month. “Our democracy is the best.”
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