Dennis G
03-14-2004, 03:30 PM
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Russia's Putin wins landslide reelection
1 hour, 50 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AFP to My Yahoo!
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) stormed to a crushing reelection victory, getting 69 percent of the vote in the nation's third post-Soviet presidential election, according to exit polls.
AFP Photo
The polls released immediately after the last polling stations of Russia's 11 time zones closed in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad showed Putin getting 69 percent with Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov a distant second with 12 percent.
In third place was the vote "against all," with 5.7 percent of voters declaring their dissatisfaction with all six candidates, said the polls, released on state-controlled television channels.
Fears that voter turnout would not reach the crucial 50-percent mark needed to make the poll valid melted away, with 61.18 percent of voters having cast their ballots by 1600 GMT.
Although five people challenged Putin for the presidency, none had a serious chance of beating the overwhelmingly popular leader who boasted approval ratings of 80 percent months before the poll.
Putin won despite having made just two direct addresses to voters during the month-long official campaign -- a 30-minute speech on the first day of campaigning and a call for Russians to perform their civic duty two days before the poll.
"It is useless to engage in pre-election tricks for a person in my position," the 51-year-old said in televised comments after voting with his wife Lyudmila in southwestern Moscow. "I think I should have made (my positions) clear during the past four years."
In the end, Putin did not need to campaign, as state-controlled national television records his daily activities on its nightly news broadcasts.
Washington slammed the media bias on Sunday.
"We are concerned about the way this election is being held," US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told the Fox News Sunday program.
"Russians have to understand that to have full democracy of the kind the international community will recognize, you've got to let candidates have all access to the media that the president has," Powell said.
Irina Khakamada, the only liberal challenger in the race, echoed such concerns as she warned of a "threat of the return to Soviet bureaucracy" under Putin as she cast her ballot in Moscow.
"We are being told that democracy is a disaster and a tragedy and that authoritarianism can feed the entire world," she said.
But voters in Moscow discounted such sentiment.
"To rule this country you need a huge amount of power, you need to use a strong hand. Stalin wielded this power by killing millions but Putin does it in a democratic way," said Natalya, a pensioner.
Putin is set to begin a second term with power reminiscent of the omnipotence of Soviet leaders -- a pro-Kremlin party controls two-thirds of parliament, state-controlled media offer obsequious coverage and former secret service colleagues are in top posts.
But the former KGB agent with steely blue eyes is genuinely popular among Russians, half of whom think that the country "always needs a strong hand," while only one-fifth oppose authoritarian power, according to a recent poll by Romir Monitoring.
"A lot of Russians want a repressive and authoritarian state," said Mark Urnov, an analyst. "They think that people must be afraid of the state in order to respect it."
Putin's popularity is reinforced by the revving economy, which grew 7.3 percent in 2003, and a booming stock market.
But many warn that with so much power, the former spy will turn Russia increasingly to its Soviet roots during his second term, while at the same time restructuring the economy to a Western model in a bid to attract foreign investment.
"In domestic policy, there will be a continuation of authoritarian policy," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a respected analyst. "But Putin is oriented to the West... he wants foreign investment into the economy."
Some 340 observers from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, who called December's legislative elections "free but not fair", monitored Sunday's vote.
Putin won his first term on March 26, 2000 with 52.5 percent of the vote on a turnout of 68.86 percent.
Russia's Putin wins landslide reelection
1 hour, 50 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AFP to My Yahoo!
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) stormed to a crushing reelection victory, getting 69 percent of the vote in the nation's third post-Soviet presidential election, according to exit polls.
AFP Photo
The polls released immediately after the last polling stations of Russia's 11 time zones closed in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad showed Putin getting 69 percent with Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov a distant second with 12 percent.
In third place was the vote "against all," with 5.7 percent of voters declaring their dissatisfaction with all six candidates, said the polls, released on state-controlled television channels.
Fears that voter turnout would not reach the crucial 50-percent mark needed to make the poll valid melted away, with 61.18 percent of voters having cast their ballots by 1600 GMT.
Although five people challenged Putin for the presidency, none had a serious chance of beating the overwhelmingly popular leader who boasted approval ratings of 80 percent months before the poll.
Putin won despite having made just two direct addresses to voters during the month-long official campaign -- a 30-minute speech on the first day of campaigning and a call for Russians to perform their civic duty two days before the poll.
"It is useless to engage in pre-election tricks for a person in my position," the 51-year-old said in televised comments after voting with his wife Lyudmila in southwestern Moscow. "I think I should have made (my positions) clear during the past four years."
In the end, Putin did not need to campaign, as state-controlled national television records his daily activities on its nightly news broadcasts.
Washington slammed the media bias on Sunday.
"We are concerned about the way this election is being held," US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told the Fox News Sunday program.
"Russians have to understand that to have full democracy of the kind the international community will recognize, you've got to let candidates have all access to the media that the president has," Powell said.
Irina Khakamada, the only liberal challenger in the race, echoed such concerns as she warned of a "threat of the return to Soviet bureaucracy" under Putin as she cast her ballot in Moscow.
"We are being told that democracy is a disaster and a tragedy and that authoritarianism can feed the entire world," she said.
But voters in Moscow discounted such sentiment.
"To rule this country you need a huge amount of power, you need to use a strong hand. Stalin wielded this power by killing millions but Putin does it in a democratic way," said Natalya, a pensioner.
Putin is set to begin a second term with power reminiscent of the omnipotence of Soviet leaders -- a pro-Kremlin party controls two-thirds of parliament, state-controlled media offer obsequious coverage and former secret service colleagues are in top posts.
But the former KGB agent with steely blue eyes is genuinely popular among Russians, half of whom think that the country "always needs a strong hand," while only one-fifth oppose authoritarian power, according to a recent poll by Romir Monitoring.
"A lot of Russians want a repressive and authoritarian state," said Mark Urnov, an analyst. "They think that people must be afraid of the state in order to respect it."
Putin's popularity is reinforced by the revving economy, which grew 7.3 percent in 2003, and a booming stock market.
But many warn that with so much power, the former spy will turn Russia increasingly to its Soviet roots during his second term, while at the same time restructuring the economy to a Western model in a bid to attract foreign investment.
"In domestic policy, there will be a continuation of authoritarian policy," said Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a respected analyst. "But Putin is oriented to the West... he wants foreign investment into the economy."
Some 340 observers from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, who called December's legislative elections "free but not fair", monitored Sunday's vote.
Putin won his first term on March 26, 2000 with 52.5 percent of the vote on a turnout of 68.86 percent.