Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to win Russia’s election by a record post-Soviet landslide on Sunday, extending his rule for at least another six years, according to exit polls.
Putin secured 87.8 percent of the vote, based on an exit poll as the polls closed Sunday from the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). This is the highest voting percentage in Russia’s post-Soviet history and the first official results suggest FOM’s early polls are accurate, Reuters reported Sunday.
A preliminary statement from Russia’s Central Election Commission said Putin received about 87 percent of the votes, confirming him as the winner of the election, according to multiple media outlets. The commission also reportedly said voter turnout was about 75 percent nationwide.
The results are set to give Putin his fifth term since first being elected as Russia’s president more than 20 years ago in late 1999. The win will make Putin Russia’s longest-serving leader since Catherine the Great in 1796, surpassing the record held by former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin, Reuters reported.
Before Putin’s rule, the Russian constitution allowed for presidents to serve just two successive terms of four years, but amendments made in 2008 under Putin’s rule elongated the presidential term to six years. Amendments in 2020 removed the rule that presidents could not serve more than two terms, according to Reuters.
FOM’s exit polls indicated communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov came in second with a little under 5 percent of the vote, while Vladislav Davankov of the New People party finished third with over 3 percent of the vote. Leonid Slutsky, an ultra-nationalist, took fourth place, according to the exit polls.
Putin’s win is not unexpected, with two other official opponents previously banned from the ballots due to their opposition against the Ukraine invasion.
The election drew a massive protest on Sunday from thousands who tried to cast votes against Putin.
Putin has encountered growing opposition since the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a remote Arctic penal colony last month. Navalny supported the planned protest days before he died.
The Kremlin has rejected accusations from other Russian opposition leaders and Western governments that Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, took part in Sunday’s protest and vowed to continue fighting against Putin.
“Thank you very much to the wonderful, best people who stood with me today from 12 noon for a whole six hours, side by side in line at the polling station. Thank you for coming, crying, laughing. Thank you for endlessly shouting ‘Yulia, we are with you’ and ‘Navalny’ and telling me that I gave you back hope,” she wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“In fact, of course, it’s the other way around – it’s you who give me hope that everything is not in vain, that we will fight on. Thank you to all of you who came out in every city around the world. You are my support and buttress. I love you all very much,” she added.
