Unofficial results indicate Vladimir Putin will serve another six-year presidential term.
Russia’s Central Election Commission says Putin has won 87% of the votes in the country’s presidential elections held from Friday 15 March to Sunday 17 March, but the ECE is yet to officially declare the results.
This means the 71 year old will now set a record as Russia’s longest-serving leader in 200 years, overtaking Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953.
Election officials report a 74.22% voter turnout, a big jump compared to the 67.5% turnout recorded in 2018.
It wasn’t only in Russia that citizens cast their ballot.
Country men living or travelling abroad also turned out in great numbers to make their mark.
Outside the Russian Embassy in London, United Kingdom, a long queue of voters lined up.
Despite the long wait and a queue stretching over several blocks, they stuck it out.
In South Africa, the Russian Ambassador, Ilya Rogachev, said the turnout was also good.
ALSO READ: Russia’s next election is likely to put Putin in power for longer than anyone since Peter the Great
In Germany, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, arrived at a Berlin polling station at midday yesterday, as part of the “Noon against Putin” demonstration.
It was aimed at encouraging protesters to gather en masse at voting stations at noon to show their dissatisfaction with Putin’s leadership.
Overseas voting has taken place in 144 countries this year, with 288 polling stations set up – a big drop compared to the last elections when there were 401 voting stations.
That’s largely due to many diplomatic missions in Europe now closed, after Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022 – 8 years after the conflict between the two originally began.
Putin thanked his country men for their votes and also recognised Russia’s online voting as a big success – officials say eight million voters utilised the online portal.
Addressing the nation from his campaign headquarters earlier today, Putin said, “No matter who or how much they want to intimidate us, no matter who or how much they want to suppress us, our will, our consciousness – no one has ever succeeded in anything like this in history,” adding, “It has not worked now and will not work in the future. Never.”
ALSO READ: Iran elections: Lowest voter turnout since revolution
