Russian President Vladimir Putin Re-Elected, Wins by a Landslide
New President-elect Vladimir Putin will go on to lead Russia for yet another six years, a new term secured with a landslide victory after the elections on Sunday, March 18. Putin's next term will mark over 20 years of rule over the country, and at a time when Russian relations with the West has been at its coldest in recent years.
Putin has received around 76 percent of the votes, as announced by the central election commission after nearly all the ballots has been counted, as BBC reported. With the main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, kept from being a candidate in this year's elections, the results were an expected outcome.
The results this year was an even bigger majority than his previous landslide victory in 2012 when he won 64 percent of the votes. The closest that any rival candidates could come was just the 12 percent garnered by millionaire communist Pavel Grudinin, with the rest of the candidates not even breaking double digits.
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"It's very important to maintain this unity. We will think about the future of our great Motherland," said Putin in a victory speech near Red Square, calling for renewed support after a win that he called a vote of confidence, earned under difficult times, according to Reuters.
Early scrutiny of the turnout figures suggested that voter turnouts would go over 60 percent in the Sunday elections. Although the Central Election Commission would agree that there were some irregularities in this year's voting, it would still likely declare the overwhelming win by Putin as a legitimate outcome.
"I think that in the United States and Britain they've understood they cannot influence our elections," Igor Morozov of the upper house of parliament announced on state media. Meanwhile, opposition leader Navalny is expected to call for an election protest.
