Vladimir Putin wins Russian presidential elections
SMA NEWS – MOSCOW
President Vladimir Putin won the Russian Presidential Elections 2024 in a record post-Soviet landslide, winning 87.8% of the vote in Russia’s election on Sunday. He made it clear that the result should send a message to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia, whether in war or peace, for many more years to come.
Putin is set to embark on a new six-year term, which, if completed, would make him Russia’s longest-serving leader in over 200 years, surpassing Josef Stalin.
After the results were declared, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other nations claimed that the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
With just under 4% of the vote, communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov finished second, followed by rookie Vladislav Davankov in third and ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky in fourth, the partial results suggested as quoted by Reuters.
In his victory speech, Putin told his supporters that he would prioritise resolving tasks associated with what he called Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian military.
“We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated – no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us – nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future,” the Russian President said.
When he appeared on stage, his supporters chanted “Putin, Putin, Putin” and “Russia, Russia, Russia”.
At noon, thousands of opponents of Putin demonstrated against him at polling places both domestically and internationally. They were motivated by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who passed away in an Arctic prison last month.
“The whole world is laughing at what is happening (in the United States). This is just a disaster, not a democracy,” Putin said while replying to a question about whether his re-election was democratic. He criticised the US political and judicial systems.
“…Is it democratic to use administrative resources to attack one of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, using the judiciary, among other things?” he asked, making an apparent reference to four criminal cases against Republican candidate Donald Trump, Reuters reported.
Given his dominance over Russia and the lack of serious opponents, Putin’s re-election was inevitable. Still, the former KGB operative wanted to demonstrate that the Russian people overwhelmingly supported him.
According to election officials, When the polls closed at 1800 GMT, the national turnout was 74.22%, exceeding the 67.5% recorded in 2018.
