Official results: Putin leads in elections in Russia
This Sunday the Russians have gone to the polls to choose who will be in charge of the country for the next six years. According to the Central Electoral Commission, the president of Russia and candidate for reelection, Vladimir Putin, has achieved victory in the presidential elections with 76.66 percent of the vote, in an election in which participation has reached 67.47 percent cent of the census.
Participation in a presidential election in Russia has never reached 70%. In the 1996 elections, which took place in two rounds, the participation in the first round was 69.8% and in the second it was 69.4%. In 2008, the figure also exceeded 69%. In the last electoral appointment, the participation was 65.3%.
The president of Central Electoral Commission, Ela Pamfilova, said that Putin has won the support of 56.2 million voters, representing 76.66 percent of the total votes, when the count reaches 99.84 percent of the ballots. Participation was 67.47 percent of the total number of registered voters. This historic result, which exceeds that achieved in the 2004 presidential elections, will allow him to remain in the Kremlin until 2024.
Putin received more than 90% of the votes in five regions or republics, among them Crimea, which celebrated the fourth anniversary of the Russian annexation and whose inhabitants participated for the first time in a presidential election. It also surpassed 70% of support in the two main cities of the country, Moscow and St. Petersburg, traditional barns of the most radical opposition to the Kremlin.
In his first appearance before the press after proclaiming his victory in the elections, Putin denied that he considers, "for the time being", to reform the Constitution in order to remain in power in six years. "It seems to me that what you are proposing is quite ridiculous, we are going to calculate, does that mean that I am going to be here until I am 100 years old?" No, "he said.
"Thank you very much for your support, I want to address all those who have gathered here today and our supporters throughout the immense country, and thank you very much for the result," Putin said during the celebration ceremony under the title "Russia, Sevastopol, Crimea."
The president stressed that he sees the result achieved "as recognition of what has been done in recent years under very difficult conditions." "I see in it confidence and hope, a hope that we will work with the same intensity, the same responsibility and with even better results," he said.
Behind Putin remain the candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Pavel Grudinin, with 12.4% of votes and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovski, with around 6% of votes. The candidate Xenia Sobchak, of Citizen Initiative, met 1.5% of the votes and Grigori Yavlinski, of Yabloko, 0.9%. Boris Titov of the Growth Party won 0.6% and Sergei Baburin of the Russian People's Union won 0.6%, the same percentage as Maxim Suraikin of the Russian Communists.
