Moscow,
Monday, 18 March, 2024
McCreadie Andias
Russian President Vladimir Putin won a record 88% vote in post-Soviet elections held on Sunday.
This is the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%.
Meanwhile, the controversial polls have been largely disputed and criticized with some EU members and the west as neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
The exit poll results cemented Putin’s grip to power for another six years that will see him overtake Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years if he completes the term.
Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov finished second with just under 4%, newcomer Vladislav Davankov third, and ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky fourth, partial results suggested.
On Monday while delivering a post – victory adress, Putin warned NATO that it’s interference with the war in Ukraine by sending troops could have severe repercussions in what he described as a potential “World War Three” but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.”It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin told reporters after winning the biggest ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.
Putin added, though, that NATO military personnel were present already in Ukraine, saying that Russia had picked up both English and French being spoken on the battlefield.
The Ukraine war has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Putin has often warned of the risks of nuclear war but says he has never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The 71-year old 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,” said Putin.
Meanwhile, thousands of opponent supporters Inspired by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, took to the streets at noon against Putin at polling stations inside Russia and abroad.
Putin told reporters he regarded Russia’s election as democratic and said the Navalny-inspired protest against him had had no effect on the election’s outcome.However, he described Navalny’s passing as a “sad event” and confirmed that he had been ready to do a prisoner swap involving the opposition politician.
He laughed off the US elections criticizing its democracy as a disaster. “The whole world is laughing at what is happening (in the United States),” he said. “This is just a disaster, not a democracy.””…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 said a statement that makes reference to Judicial law suits targeting former US President Donald Trump.