Vladimir Putin will remain in the Kremlin until 2030

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin On Sunday he achieved his biggest electoral victory since coming to power, meaning he will remain in the Kremlin until 2030.

Putin, 71, received 87.2% of the votes, ten points more than in 2018 (76.5), during the three days of voting in the eighth presidential election in Russian history since 1991.

The results of the elections were not affected by the death in prison of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, for which his co-religionists blame the Kremlin, nor by the Ukrainian border incursions in recent days.

Ukraine and Western foreign ministries denounced the absence of opposition candidates and illegal voting in the four Ukrainian regions annexed by the Russian army, while the Russian opposition asked the international community not to recognize the election results.

Almost 100 million votes

More than 98 million Russians, out of a total of 112 million who were called to the polls, voted in favor of the re-election for a fifth term of the current president, who came to the Kremlin in 1999 after receiving power from the hands of Boris Yeltsin.

After the counting of more than 68% of the votes, Putin’s victory seems unappealable, although he benefited from the increase in the number of voters, since 4.5 million voters came from the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The second most voted candidate was the communist Nikolai Kharitonov with 4.17% of the votes, followed by the representative of the New People party, Vladislav Davankov, with 4.07%. The last one in contention is the ultranationalist Leonid Slutski, who totals 3.15% of the ballots.

The opposition to the Kremlin could not participate in the elections, since the CEC did not register its candidates for various technical reasons or formal defects, and for supporting peace in Ukraine, an inadmissible option for the regime.

The CEC, which did not invite Western observers, denied that serious irregularities occurred, although independent experts and the press in exile reported cases of electoral fraud and manipulation.

Stalinist mobilization

As in Soviet times, the Kremlin launched its entire Stalinist administrative machinery to mobilize the population in support of the militarist drift.

Participation with three hours left before the closing of the schools exceeded 74%, which is expected to mark a historical maximum since the first direct presidential elections in 1991.

In the country’s two main cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, more than two-thirds of the electorate voted and Putin received between 80% and 90% of the votes.

Meanwhile, in the occupied areas in Ukraine between 88% and 95% of voters opted for the current tenant of the Kremlin with participation also above 80%, despite the intense fighting.

In Crimea, which celebrates ten years since Russian annexation on Monday, 81% of those registered voted, of which more than 90% supported Putin. Even in Moscow prisons Putin achieved more than 82% of the votes.

The opposition suspects that the authorities forced public sector employees, the president’s electoral breadbasket, to vote – under penalty of loss of employment – after more than half of the census already voted in the first two days.

In addition, millions of Russians voted electronically, either from home or at terminals in schools, which the opposition considers an instrument of fraud.

The opposition votes against Putin at noon

After tens of thousands of people attended Navalny’s funeral, the dissidents called their supporters to the peaceful action “Noon against Putin” to express their rejection of the Kremlin and the war.

“It had been a long time since I had voted. Today I voted against Putin, I spoiled the ballot. It doesn’t change anything, but I expressed my opinion and I saw people who think the same as me,” Yulia told EFE. at the doors of a Moscow school.

Despite the warnings from the Prosecutor’s Office, the influx of voters began to skyrocket at 12:00, which created large queues at the entrance to the schools under the nervous gaze of the police, who seemed helpless. Thousands of Russians responded to the call in several European cities.

“I have voted against Putin, I always do. I’m older and I know what the KGB is. I’m very happy. I live up there (pointing to the balcony) and the first two days hardly anyone voted. And today, at 12, many people gathered. “It has been a complete success,” said Marina, 71 years old.