Summary: Vladimir Putin rolled to a crushing re-election victory Sunday for six more years as Russia's president, and he told cheering supporters in a triumphant but brief speech with a notorious slogan of "we are bound for success." There had been no doubt that Putin would win in his fourth electoral contest; he faced seven minor candidates, and his most prominent foe was blocked from the ballot. His only real challenge was to run up the tally so high that he could claim an indisputable mandate. With ballots from 80 percent of Russia's precincts counted by early Monday, Putin had amassed 76 percent of the vote. Observers and individual voters reported widespread violations including ballot-box stuffing and forced voting, but the claims are unlikely to dilute the power of Russia's longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin. As the embodiment of Russia's resurgent power on the world stage, Putin commands immense loyalty among Russians. More than 30,000 crowded into Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin in temperatures of negative degrees for a victory concert and to await his words. Putin extolled them for their support, saying,"I am a member of your team," and he promised to them that "we are bound for success." Then he left the stage after speaking for less than two minutes, a seemingly perfunctory appearance that encapsulated the election's predictability.
Synthesis: Since he took the helm in Russia on New Year's Eve 1999 after Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation, Putin's electoral power has centred on stability, a quality cherished by Russians after the chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union and the "wild capitalism" of the Yeltsin years. But that stability has been bolstered by a suppression of dissent, the withering of independent media, and the top-down control of politics called "managed democracy." There were widespread reports of forced voting Sunday, efforts to make Russia appear to be a robust democracy. Other examples from observers and social media included ballot boxes being stuffed with extra ballots in multiple regions; an election official assaulting an observer, cameras obscured by flags or nets from watching ballot boxes, discrepancies in ballot numbers, last-minute voter registration changes likely designed to boost turnout, and a huge pro-Putin sign in one polling station. Election officials moved quickly to respond to some of the violations. They suspended the chief of a polling station near Moscow where a ballot-stuffing incident was reported and sealed the ballot box. A man accused of tossing multiple ballots into a box in the far eastern town of Artyom was arrested. Overall national turnout was expected to be a little more than 60 percent, which would be several points below turnout in Putin's electoral wins in 2000, 2004 and 2012. He did not run in 2008 because of term limits, but was appointed prime minister, a role in which he was widely seen as leader. Putin's most vehement foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was barred from running Sunday because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated. Navalny and his supporters had called for an election boycott but the extent of its success could not immediately be gauged. The election came amid escalating tensions with the West, with reports that Moscow was behind the nerve-agent poisoning this month of a former Russian double agent in Britain and that its internet trolls had waged an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Britain and Russia last week announced expulsions of diplomats over the spy case, and the U.S. issued new sanctions.
Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/putin-claims-crushing-victory-in-russian-presidential-vote-1.3847861
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