Putin savors record win, securing six
more years at Russia's helm
Send a link to a friend
[March 19, 2018]
By Andrew Osborn and Christian Lowe
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President
Vladimir Putin basked in his biggest ever election victory on Monday,
extending his rule over the world's largest country for another six
years at a time when his ties with the West are on a hostile trajectory.
Putin's victory will take his political dominance of Russia to nearly a
quarter of a century, until 2024, making him the longest ruler since
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Putin, who will be 71 at the end of his
term, has promised to beef up Russia's defenses against the West and
raise living standards.
In an outcome that was never in doubt, the Central Election Commission,
with nearly 100 percent of the votes counted, announced that Putin, who
has run Russia as president or prime minister since 1999, had won 76.68
percent of the vote.
With more than 56 million votes, it was Putin's biggest ever win and the
largest by any post-Soviet Russian leader.
In a late-night victory speech near Red Square, Putin told a cheering
crowd the win was a vote of confidence in what he had achieved in tough
conditions.
"It's very important to maintain this unity," said Putin, before leading
the crowd in repeated chants of "Russia! Russia!"
Backed by state TV and the ruling party, and credited with an approval
rating around 80 percent, he faced no credible threat from a field of
seven challengers.
His nearest rival, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, won 11.8
percent while nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky got 5.6 percent. His most
vocal opponent, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred
from running.
Critics alleged that officials had compelled people to come to the polls
to ensure that boredom with the one-sided contest did not lead to low
participation.
"NO SERIOUS COMPLAINTS"
Near-final figures put turnout at 67.47 percent, just shy of the 70
percent the Kremlin was reported to have been aiming for before the
vote.
The Central Election Commission said on Monday morning that it had not
registered any serious complaints of violations. Putin loyalists said
the result was a vindication of his tough stance toward the West.
"I think that in the United States and Britain they've understood they
cannot influence our elections," Igor Morozov, a member of the upper
house of parliament, said on state television.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down suggestions on Monday that
tensions with the West had boosted turnout, saying the result showed
that people were united behind Putin's plans to develop Russia.
He said Putin would spend the day fielding calls of congratulation,
meeting supporters, and holding talks with the losing candidates.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was among the first to offer his
congratulations to Putin, but Heiko Maas, Germany's new foreign
minister, questioned whether there had been fair political competition.
[to top of second column]
|
Russian President and Presidential candidate Vladimir Putin delivers
a speech at his election headquaters in Moscow, Russia March 18,
2018. Sergei Chirkov/POOL via Reuters
Opposition leader Navalny is expected to call for protests demanding
a re-run of an election that he says was neither free nor fair.
International observers were due to give their verdict later on
Monday.
The longer-term question is whether Putin will now soften his
anti-Western rhetoric.
His bellicose language reached a crescendo in a state-of-the-nation
speech before the election when he unveiled new nuclear weapons,
saying they could strike almost any point in the world..
AT ODDS WITH THE WEST
Russia is currently at odds with the West over Syria, Ukraine;
allegations of cyber attacks and meddling in foreign elections; and
the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian spy and his daughter.
As a result, relations with the West have hit a post-Cold-War low.
Britain and Russia are locked in a diplomatic dispute over the
poisoning, and Washington is eyeing new sanctions on Moscow over
allegations that it interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election, which Russia denies.
Putin said late on Sunday it was nonsense to think that Russia would
have poisoned the former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in
Britain, and said Moscow was ready to cooperate with London.
How long Putin wants to stay in power is uncertain.
The constitution limits the president to two successive terms,
obliging him to step down at the end of his new mandate.
Asked after his re-election if he would run for yet another term in
the future, Putin laughed off the idea.
"Let's count. What, do you think I will sit (in power) until I'm 100
years old?" he said, calling the question "funny".
Although Putin has six years to consider a possible successor,
uncertainty about his future is a potential source of instability in
a fractious ruling elite that only he can keep in check.
"The longer he stays in power, the harder it will be to exit," said
Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a
think tank. "How can he abandon such a complicated system, which is
essentially his personal project?"
(Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk and Maria Kiselyova, Reuters
reporters in Russia, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Andrew
Osborn; Editing by Peter Graff and Kevin Liffey)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |