Preliminary results say Putin won nearly 88% of the vote, as the opposition was crushed

2024-03-17 21:31:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Preliminary results say Putin won nearly 88% of the vote, as the opposition was

Russia has released preliminary results of a presidential election in which the opposition was crushed, saying authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin won nearly 88 percent of the vote.

Putin will extend his rule of almost a quarter of a century for another six years, after a merciless war on opponents and dissenters.

Russia's Central Election Commission said that, according to preliminary results, Putin won nearly 88 percent of the vote.

According to the FOM exit poll, Putin won 87.8 percent of the votes, while according to the Public Research Center of Russia (VCIOM), Putin won 87 percent of the votes.

Voting on March 17, the last day of the three-day election, was held virtually unopposed for Putin, but under missile and drone attacks from Ukraine.

Elections were also held in the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, in several Ukrainian regions occupied by Russian forces during the full occupation that began in 2022, and in Russian embassies around the world.

Scores of Russian citizens lined up at polling stations across Russia in time for the "Noon Against Putin" action.

Large numbers of Russians, who do not want Putin to remain in power, went to the polls at the same time at noon, some of whom even took steps to destroy their ballots.

Dozens of people were arrested across the country during the vote, which took place under tight security measures. Russia claimed that Ukraine, which it accused of carrying out a wave of airstrikes that reached as far as Moscow, tried to disrupt the election process.

The Kremlin's relentless war, which has suppressed independent media and human rights groups, began before Moscow began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but it has only gotten tougher since then.

Before he died in a Russian prison in the Arctic under suspicious circumstances, serving what was described as a politically motivated sentence, opposition leader Alexei Navalny had hoped to use the election to demonstrate popular discontent with the war in Ukraine and Putin's iron rule.

He had called on voters to cast their vote exactly at noon, calling the action "Noon against Putin."

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, as well as others, have continued calls for election day protests.

Videos and photos posted on social networks showed long queues of voters at noon in Russian cities such as Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm and Moscow.

"The action has achieved its goals," said Ivan Zhdanov, head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which was once headed by Navalny.

"The action has shown that there is another Russia, that there are people who stand up against Putin," he said.

The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of heavy prison sentences for those seen as obstructing the voting process.

The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across Russia on March 17.

For the final day of the election, Russian authorities prepared for unusual midday protests at polling stations, and warned that those who disrupt the voting process will face heavy prison sentences. Earlier, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office threatened to prosecute all those seen interfering with the work of election commissions at midday polling stations.

During the first two days of voting, some Russian citizens have expressed their anger at Putin's authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes.

28 such incidents have been reported, as well as arrests.

Such incidents have been reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi and Volgograd.

Russia's former president, Dmitry Medvedev, now vice president of the Security Council, condemned the protesters on Saturday, calling them "traitors" who are helping the country's enemy, especially Ukraine.

Putin, 71, who has been president, or prime minister, for 25 years ran against three little-known politicians - Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People's Party, as and against State Duma lawmaker Nokolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party – whose political positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin's. Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was barred from running by Russia's Central Election Commission last month because of what he said were invalid signatures of supporters on his application to register as presidential candidate.

He appealed, but the commission's decision was upheld by the Supreme Court of Russia.

Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding elections in Ukrainian regions, calling them illegal./ Rel