Vladimir Putin will be leading Russia for another six years after he secures the role with a considerable result from the presidential election. After the majority of the ballots had been counted, Putin had received approximately 76% of the votes according to the central election commission.
After the results were declared early, Putin addressed a rally in Moscow about his potential victory saying that his victory was due to the voters recognising the achievements and efforts that had been accomplished in the past few years.
A reporter also asked Putin if he would be running for another six years following his latest victory. His response was simply asking the reporter if he thought he’d be in office until he was a hundred years old? He then mentioned that he will not be planning on running after this term and that the remark was rather humorous.
The size of Putin’s victory this year is even larger than his previous campaign that he won in 2012 with a voting share of 64%. The next closest competitor was Pavel Grudinin who only had 12% share of the votes according to the central election commission.
The race consisted of many different people that didn’t necessarily have a political background. Grudinin is a millionaire communist and the other candidates were; Ksenia Sobchak who is a former reality television host and Vladimir Zhirinovsky who was a veteran nationalist.
The main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny was barred from the presidential race due to an embezzlement conviction that he describes was created by the Kremlin. His initial reaction to the conviction was anger as Navalny took to social media to vent his feelings about the issue.
He stated that it is the season of lent and that he would not get angry this year. Unfortunately as that was not the case he said he’ll try again next year.
There have been some notable circumstances involving ballot stuffing during the election. Webcams that were monitoring the activity of the voting process captured balloons being used to obstruct their view as well as voting papers being found in ballot boxes before the polls had opened.
The head of the central election commission stated that there have been no serious violations that have been registered yet. They have been analysing and monitoring everything that has happened so far and everything is relatively modest. She also mentioned that anyone who is involved with ballot tampering violations will be caught.