'Winning' 87% vote in an election sans competition, Putin cements hold on Russia with new six-year term

Berlin: President Vladimir Putin on Sunday extended his rule over Russia until 2030, using a heavily stage-managed presidential election with no real competition to portray overwhelming public support for his domestic dominance and his invasion of Ukraine.

Some Russians tried to turn the undemocratic vote into a protest, forming long lines at polling stations at a predetermined time — noon — to register their discontent. At the same time, Ukraine sought to cast its own vote of sorts by firing a volley of exploding drones at Moscow and other targets.

But the Kremlin brushed those challenges aside and released results after the polls closed claiming that Putin had won 87% of the vote — a higher share than in the four previous elections he participated in.

Afterward, Putin took a lengthy, televised victory lap, including a swaggering, after-midnight news conference at which he commented on the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny for the first time, referring to it as an “unfortunate incident.”

Putin is now set to use his new six-year term to further cement his control of Russian politics and to press on with the war in Ukraine. If he sees the term through to its end, he will become the longest-serving Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 1700s.

Western governments were quick to condemn the election as undemocratic. Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, said: “The elections were obviously not free nor fair.”

But as Putin prepares to assume a fifth term as president, he appears as emboldened as ever, deepening his confrontation with the West and showing a willingness to keep escalating tensions. Asked at the news conference whether he believed that a full-scale conflict between Russia and NATO was possible, Putin responded: “I think that anything is possible in today’s world.”

Asked about priorities for his next term, Putin began by referring to his invasion of Ukraine. “We need to carry out the tasks in the context of the special military operation,” he said. The results, he said, have helped “consolidate society” around his leadership, a refrain also repeated on state television.

The extent of the Russian public’s true support for Putin in the election was hard to judge, given that opposition candidates were barred from running and that ballot-stuffing and other cases of fraud were common occurrences in past Russian elections.