By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Vladimir Putin has won Russia’s presidential election with 87.97% of the vote, according to the first official results showed on Sunday.
Putin was standing against three candidates from parties who have not criticised his rule nor his invasion of Ukraine.
The result means Putin will rule until at least 2030, when he will be 77. Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, he will secure a third full decade of rule.
The result was inevitable, but the ritual of elections is nonetheless crucially important to the Kremlin as a means of confirming Putin’s authority. The ritual used to be held every four years, before the law was changed in 2008 to extend presidential terms to six years. More constitutional changes in 2020 removed presidential term limits, potentially allowing Putin to stay in power until 2036.
Russia also held the presidential election in four Ukrainian regions it annexed during its full-scaled invasion. Ukraine said the elections violated international law and would be designated “null and void.”
Putin’s fiercest opponents have died in recent months. After leading a failed uprising in June, Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed two months later after his plane crashed while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The Kremlin denied any involvement in Prigozhin’s death.
The elections were held a month after the death of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s most formidable opponent. Navalny, who was barred from running for election in 2018, was poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in 2020.
The election was also marred by more graphic acts of defiance. As of Saturday, Russia had filed at least 15 criminal cases after people poured dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbed Molotov cocktails at polling stations. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s CEC, said 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia were targeted, including eight arson attempts.
Former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev meanwhile congratulated Putin on his “splendid victory” long before the final results were due to be announced.
And state-run television praised how Russians and rallied with “colossal support for the president” as well as the “unbelievable consolidation” of the country behind its leader.