CNN
—
President Vladimir Putin is set to tighten his grip on the country he has ruled since the beginning of this century, with the partial results of Russia's staged elections a foregone conclusion that Kremlin leaders expected. It shows that it was a great victory.
Preliminary results reported by Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) on Sunday showed Putin leading with 87.3% of the vote after half of the vote counting was completed.
This result means that President Putin will rule until at least 2030 (when he is 77 years old). Russia's longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin will secure a third full year in power.
Most opposition candidates are either dead, imprisoned, exiled, or banned from running, and dissent has been effectively outlawed in Russia since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. President Putin faced no credible challenge to his rule.
The result was inevitable… Putin's spokesman last year said the vote was “costly bureaucracy” rather than “true democracy.” But the election ritual is still crucial to the Kremlin as a means of confirming Putin's authority.
The ceremony was held every four years until the law was changed in 2008 to extend the presidential term to six years. A subsequent constitutional amendment would remove presidential term limits, potentially allowing Putin to remain in power until 2036.
In a victory speech at his campaign headquarters late Sunday, Putin said the election had “strengthened” national unity and said Russia faced “many challenges” as it continues on a path of confrontation with the West. .
“No matter how much someone tries to scare us, no matter how much they try to suppress our will and consciousness, no one in history has ever accomplished anything like that, it has never happened, and it will never happen. Probably not in the future. Absolutely not,” he said.
President Putin's most powerful adversary has died in recent months.
Wagner mercenary commander Evgeny Prigozhin led an unsuccessful uprising in June, but was killed two months later in a plane crash while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The Kremlin denied his involvement in Prigozhin's death.
The election came a month after Putin's most formidable opponent, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony. Mr Navalny's family and supporters have accused President Putin of being responsible for his death, a claim rejected by the Kremlin.
In a speech on Sunday night, Putin broke with the unprecedented tradition of not mentioning Navalny's name, spoke about his death and acknowledged discussions over a possible prisoner swap involving opposition forces. Navalny's supporters had previously claimed there were “a few more days” left for him to be replaced before his death.
“As for Mr. Navalny, yes, he died. It's always a sad event. There have been other cases of people dying in prison. Didn't this happen in America too? It happened, but once… It wasn’t,” he said.
Putin said he was informed days before Navalny's death of a proposal to exchange him for prisoners held in Western countries. “When I said I agreed, the person who spoke to me had not yet completed his sentence,” Putin said. “But unfortunately what happened [Navalny’s death] happened. There was only one condition: I would trade him for someone who wouldn't come back. Let him sit there. Well, sometimes that happens. There's nothing you can do about it, that's life. ”
Ebrahim Norouzi/AP
Around noon local time on March 17, 2024, Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya waits in a line near the Russian embassy in Berlin, Germany.
Mr Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, had called on Russians to vote en masse in a show of opposition on Sunday, the last day of voting across Russia's 11 time zones and 88 federal subjects. In the preparations, the Kremlin warned against unauthorized gatherings.
CNN reporters in Moscow saw lines outside polling stations quickly grow at midday as part of the so-called “Noon Anti-Putin” demonstrations inspired by Mr. Navalny. “This is the first time in my life I've seen a voting line,” a woman who was waiting in line told CNN. When I asked her why she came at that time, she replied: I think everyone standing in this line knows why. ”
Similar protests were held at Russian embassies across Europe, with large crowds gathering at noon in places such as London and Paris. Mr. Navalnaya took part in a demonstration in Berlin, showing his opposition alongside other voters.
The election was marred by further acts of blatant defiance. As of Saturday, Russia had filed at least 15 criminal cases accusing people of pouring dye into ballot boxes, setting them on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at voting stations. Russia's CEC head Ella Pamfilova said 29 polling stations in 20 regions of Russia were targeted, including eight arson attempts.
More than 60 Russians were detained in at least 16 cities on the final day of voting, according to independent human rights group OVD-Info.
AP
Voters line up at a polling station in St. Petersburg, Russia, at noon local time on March 17, 2024.
Russia also held presidential elections in four regions of Ukraine that it annexed during its full-scale invasion. Ukraine said the election violated international law and would be declared “invalid.”
Authorities set up by Russia in occupied Ukraine reported a high turnout of more than 80%. But evidence of voter coercion has emerged. Russia's Telegram channel showed Russian soldiers accompanying election officials going door to door to collect votes.
A video from Luhansk shows an elderly woman filling out an election form and putting it in a ballot box inside her apartment, as a man in military uniform stands over her with a rifle pointed at his chest. .
After preliminary results were announced on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Putin a “dictator” and Russia's election a “sham.”
“As has often happened throughout history, it is clear to everyone in the world that this man is simply sick with power and is doing everything in his power to rule for the rest of his life. “There is no way they won't do bad things. And no one in the world is immune to this,” Zelenskiy said.
The elections come after more than two years of war, which has taken a heavy toll on the Russian people. The Kremlin keeps casualty figures secret, but Western officials believe more than 300,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded on the battlefields in Ukraine.
On Sunday, President Putin, responding to a journalist's question about French President Emmanuel Macron's comments last month that did not rule out sending European troops to Ukraine, said such a move would be “a step towards World War III”. Ta.
Dmitri Labetsky/AP
A man leaves the polling station at a polling station in St. Petersburg on March 16, 2024.
Putin's invasion reshaped the geopolitical axis of the post-Cold War world, with Western powers treating Russia as a pariah state after decades of warmer relations. The move comes after the International Criminal Court last year issued an arrest warrant for Putin on suspicion of war crimes committed in Ukraine, requiring more than 100 countries to arrest Russian leaders if they set foot on their soil. The war has also shrunk Putin's world.
But the war also opened new avenues for Russia, which is seeking to forge new partnerships and strengthen existing ones. Russia's ties with China, North Korea and Iran, which have not condemned aggression, are deepening, and Putin is trying to curry favor with countries in the Global South as he projects a vision of a world that is not led by the West.
Putin's critics accuse him of manufacturing foreign policy problems to distract from the government's inability to solve Russia's myriad domestic problems, from low life expectancy to widespread poverty. ing.
Although Russia has weathered Western sanctions better than expected, the conflict has sucked resources into military production and distorted the economy. Tens of thousands of young professionals have fled the country as inflation has skyrocketed and basic necessities such as eggs become unobtainable.
In an authoritarian state like Russia, public opinion is difficult to gauge, watchdogs operate under close scrutiny, and many people fear criticizing the Kremlin.
However, the non-governmental polling organization Levada Center reports that almost half of Russians strongly support the war in Ukraine, and more than three-quarters support it to some degree. Levada also reported that President Putin's approval rating was over 80%, a figure little known among Western politicians, and that it was in the three years before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It has increased significantly compared to
This is a developing story and will be updated.
