The first preliminary results were barely revealed when reactions began to fall. Unsurprisingly, after a vote spread over three days which ended this Sunday March 17, free of any suspense because it was controlled with an iron fist by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin was largely re-elected for a fifth term. He received almost 87% of the votes after counting 36% of offices, according to the Russian Election Commission. A poll by the official Vtsiom institute, announced on state television, also credits him with 87% of the vote.
A record for the one who had always received between 64 and 68% of the votes in previous elections. “Colossal support”, “incredible consolidation” of society: Russian television multiplied the superlatives to describe the success of the head of state. “I congratulate Vladimir Putin on his resounding victory,” congratulated Dmitri Medvedev, number 2 of the Russian security council and who held the presidency from 2008 to 2012, with Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister – the latter being affected, at the time , by term limits.
A sham election, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately denounced, considering that the vote was “not legal, free and fair”, since it took place “in a context of severe repression”. Comments supported by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country is at war with Moscow. “It is clear to everyone that this character, as has happened so often in history, is simply drunk with power and is doing everything he can to rule forever,” he said in a message on social networks, believing that the Russian presidential election has “no legitimacy”.
Putin’s score in the Russian presidential election has “no link with reality”, added the team of Alexei Navalny, the opponent who died on February 16 in a Russian prison where he was serving a 19-year sentence. for “extremism”.