KUALA LUMPUR – It was always going to be a “landslide victory” for Russian President Vladimir Putin as he secured 87.2% of all votes cast, seeing that his major opponents are either dead, in prison, or exiled.
In his speech after the three-day polls closed early today, he said no one will succeed in intimidating or suppressing Russia.
“No matter who or how much they want to intimidate us, no matter who or how much they want to suppress us, our will, our consciousness – no one has ever succeeded in anything like this in history. It has not worked now and will not work in the future. Never.
“I want to thank all of you and all citizens of the country for your support and this trust,” he said in a press conference at his campaign headquarters in Moscow.
Putin is on his way to becoming the longest-serving leader in Russia in more than 200 years, since Catherine the Great in the 18th century. She ruled for 34 years, 4 months, and eight days.
He also used the polling results as a mandate for Russia to continue its full-scale military operation in Ukraine.
“The initiative belongs entirely to the Russian armed forces. In some areas, our guys are just mowing them – the enemy – down.”
Despite his claims, there have been reports that Ukraine had been mounting some of its most significant aerial attacks on Russia in the last week.
Not all in Europe are happy with Russia’s election results as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Putin a “dictator drunk from power”.
UK’s foreign minister David Cameron also dismissed the polling results, saying: “This is not what free and fair elections look like.”
“The polls have closed in Russia, following the illegal holding of elections on Ukrainian territory, a lack of choice for voters and no independent OSCE monitoring,” he tweeted.
Also EU chief Charles Michel on Friday already sarcastically congratulated Putin on his “landslide victory”.
Meanwhile, a handful of supporters of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s biggest rival who died in prison last month, had urged voters to flood polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots.
His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was greeted by supporters with flowers and applause in Berlin when she turned up to vote at the Russian embassy.
The OVD-Info independent rights watchdog said some 80 people had been detained across 20 cities in Russia for protests linked to the election. – March 18, 2024