Putin wins with landslide margin in Russian presidential election

Putin has secured a landslide election victory in Russian Federation, the largest and one of the most powerful nation in the world, after he earned over 76 percent of the vote, according to official poll results cited by global reports.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani congratulated Putin on his “decisive victory” and pledged to boost ties.

He won by securing close to 75 percent of the vote. Communist party challenger Pavel Grudinin came in second place with 11.2 percent of the vote.

“If it had not been for our observers, the turnout for Putin would have been 80%, and that would have given an opportunity to state that the ‘whole Russian Federation stands for Putin'”.

“China is willing to work with Russia to keep promoting China-Russia relations to a higher level”.

Putin’s re-election was widely expected as poll numbers put the strongman far above the seven candidates – including his late mentor’s daughter – who ran against him. Though their support remains limited, Navalny and his supporters hope to embarrass Putin by depressing turnout.

By 0700 GMT, turnout stood at 16.55 percent, compared with 6.53 percent at the same hour during the 2012 vote, said Central Electoral Commission head Ella Pamfilova. The country’s opposition movement also made a strong showing.

The commission said with 21 percent of all precincts counted, all from Russian’s Far East, Putin was leading the race with 71.9 percent of the vote. Also, Russian citizens will also be able to cast their ballots in 145 countries, including Israel. Putin stated that our country is a democratic one, that our courts are fair, but he is lying. She said the ballot box was sealed and the man was arrested.

Election officials moved quickly to respond to some of the violations.

Since first being elected president in 2000, Putin has stamped his total authority on the world’s biggest country, muzzling opposition, putting television under state control and reasserting Moscow’s standing overseas.

But Navalny, who risks 30 days in jail for organising illegal protests, urged a boycott. “They once again started piling pressure on us when we needed to mobilise”.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia didn’t even bother with such nuances, calling Putin a straight-up “dictator”, though the article was later amended to merely describe the vote as “inevitable”.

Around 80 percent of the polling stations in Russian Federation were under video surveillance, Pamfilova said. Other videos published Sunday showed ballot stuffing in Chechnya, Dagestan, and the Sakha Republic. “So it is important to underline, elections are much more than just election day”.

Russia’s voter turnout has been falling for years: The last nationwide elections, a Duma vote in 2016, saw turnout drop below 50 percent for the first time.

“Who am I voting for?” “The whole thing – the elections today – seems so artificial, I don’t want to be a part of it”.

In a change, people can vote at any polling station.

Putin pictured casting his vote at the polling station.

Russian Federation and Venezuela are “brother countries” as both must “face the frequent manoeuvres of imperialism” to “impose doctrines of world supremacy”, said a statement from President Nicolas Maduro. “He showed that our team is the good one”.

The regional election commission said the results from the Lyubertsy station would be invalidated.

“Challenging borders by force is contrary to global law, including commitments made by the Russian Federation”, said the French foreign ministry, adding that it was “concerned by the militarization” in the region as well as human rights abuses. Preston was in Crimea earlier this week, where he told local journalists that “Crimea was, is, and will always be part of Russian Federation”. There’s a lot of them and they don’t remember what it was like in the Soviet Union.