Putin claims landslide victory in Russian election, despises US democracy

President Vladimir Putin always intended to claim a fifth term as president with a landslide victory, running against three other Kremlin-approved candidates.

But when election officials announced that he had won more than 87% of the vote, he said Russia’s democracy was more transparent than many Western democracies.

In fact, credible opposition candidates were not allowed to run.

Supporters of late Putin critic Alexei Navalny staged a symbolic protest.

Their “noon versus Putin” initiative resulted in long lines of voters at noon in Russian cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg, and even more lines outside many foreign embassies. had no effect on.

Monitoring group OVDinfo said at least 80 Russians had been arrested. There was no repeat of Friday’s sporadic attacks on some polling stations.

Western countries collectively condemned the vote as neither free nor fair.

Germany called it a “sham election” under authoritarian rule that relied on censorship, repression and violence.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron condemned the “illegal election on Ukrainian territory.”

“The Russian dictator is simulating another election,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

In the words of Leonid Volkov, a Navalny ally who was severely beaten with a meat hammer while in exile in Lithuania last week, “The percentage that was chosen by Putin has, of course, nothing to do with reality.” .

To persuade residents to take part in the vote, Russian citizens had three days to vote, and residents of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine had even longer to vote.

An election commission official was reported killed in the occupied city of Berdyansk on Sunday, and residents spoke of pro-Russian collaborators accompanying armed soldiers going door to door with ballot boxes.

But on Russia’s carefully controlled state television channels, the result was hailed as a victory.

“This is an incredible level of support and solidarity for President Vladimir Putin,” said one excited correspondent. “It’s a signal to the West.”

Putin took a low-key attitude when responding to questions from reporters, but cited Russia’s use of online voting, which officials said had attracted 8 million voters, and criticized Russia’s presidential campaign. praised the country as being far more advanced than the United States.

Mr Putin had earlier been filmed hitting a key to exercise his democratic rights.

“It’s transparent and completely objective,” he said, adding, “Unlike mail-in voting in the United States, you can buy a vote for $10.”

He is currently scheduled to remain in power until at least 2030, having ruled Russia since 2000, making him the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Mr. Golos, an independent watchdog, was barred from monitoring the vote, but reports of fraud have surfaced and he is pressuring public officials to vote either at polling stations or online.

Putin condemned those who defaced ballot papers and said action would be taken against them, but praised opposition activists for urging more people to vote.

He first mentioned Alexei Navalny’s name a month after his most vocal critic died in an Arctic penal colony.

In remarks that may have been aimed at rebutting widespread suspicions that he had Mr. Navalny killed, Mr. Putin said he was considering swapping Mr. Navalny for prisoners held in Western countries. He confirmed the report, but the condition was that his rival never return.

“I said yes, but unfortunately it happened. What can I do? That’s life.”

Yulia Navalnaya spoke about standing in line for six hours outside the Russian embassy in Berlin as part of the protest vote campaign. She said she wrote her late husband’s name on her ballot, and she praised everyone who came to vote for giving her “hope that it wasn’t all in vain.”

One protester in London said he waited in line for more than seven hours to vote.

Activist and lawyer Lyubov Sobol said in Washington, D.C., that the protest vote will not be reflected in the Kremlin’s results, “but this unity, this symbol is still important.”

The Russian presidential election will never be a level playing field. The Kremlin tightly controls the political system, media, and elections.

Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov received just over 4% of the vote, and the other candidates received even less.

None of the three are serious candidates, and Kharitonov even praised the president before the election, saying he was “trying to unite the country for victory in all fields.”

Millions of Russians will vote for a fifth term for President Putin, in part because they see no credible alternative.

But this is purely because the Kremlin has removed potential challengers from the political world. Opponents have been imprisoned, exiled or even died.

For several weeks there were suggestions that an anti-war politician named Boris Nadezhdin might be allowed to run. But last month, the electoral commission decided to exclude him as more Russians sympathized with his message and lined up to register their support.