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Subscribe to RSSYEKATERINBURG, Russia - Vladimir Putin sought a convincing victory in Russia's presidential election on Sunday to strengthen his hand in dealing with the biggest opposition protests since he rose to power 12 years ago.
Critics question the legitimacy of a vote they say is skewed to help the former KGB spy return to the Kremlin after four years as prime minister, and are threatening to step up protests that began after a disputed parliamentary poll in December.
Putin's victory was not in doubt as voters cast ballots from Russia's Pacific coast across many sparsely populated swathes of territory to the western borders with the European Union. But he was hoping for an outright victory in the first round which he could portray as a strong mandate for six more years in power.
Early signs were that turnout would be high. Officials said more than 12 percent of voters had cast ballots by 10 a.m Moscow time (1:00 a.m. ET) compared with 8.9 percent at the 2008 election that brought Putin's ally, Dmitry Medvedev, to the Kremlin.
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Some voters expressed anger at being offered no real choice in a vote that pits Putin against four weaker candidates - communist Gennady Zyuganov, nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, former parliamentary speaker Sergei Mironov and billionaire metals tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov.
Others said Putin, who has portrayed himself as a man of action, was the tough national leader Russia needed.
"I will of course vote for Putin. Who else is there?," said Mikhail, a university student in Vladivostok, a port city of 600,000 on the Pacific coast.
"I voted for the Soviets," said an aged man dressed in a shabby leather coat who declined to give his name. Asked if that meant Zyuganov, he said: "For Putin. He is raising our pensions, while Zyuganov is only making pledges."
The last opinion polls before the election showed Putin, who was president from 2000 to 2008 before constitutional limits barred a third straight term, would win 59-66 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a second-round runoff.
But a 22-year old student in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg student, declining to give her second name, said she would vote for the "rich and single" Prokhorov.
Pyotr Kirillov, 75, said in Yekaterinburg that he had not changed his ideals in the past 50 years despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"I voted for our party, for Zyuganov," he said.
Others were just indifferent. Yekaterinburg transport worker Alexander, fed up with politics and the lack of choice, said: "All of our family will go to our dacha (country house) today."
Putin, 59, has been lionised by state television and is running against politicians who, with the exception of Prokhorov, have made a habit of losing elections to the Kremlin.
But growing voter fatigue with Putin has unsettled Russia's elite of officials, former spies and billionaire businessmen: Putin's self-portrayal as the anchor of Russian stability hinges on his popularity.
Bloggers have posted allegations of election rigging in and outside Moscow, suggesting groups of voters are being taken to one polling station after another to vote several times for Putin. This trick is known as carousel voting.
"Wow, we were of course expecting carousels, but not on this scale," Alexei Navalny, a 35-year-old anti-corruption blogger and influential figure in the protest movement, wrote on his Twitter account.
Election officials dismissed reports that there were widespread voting irregularities in December's poll, won by Putin's United Russia party.
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In an attempt to allay fears of vote rigging, Putin ordered 182,000 web cameras to be installed at 91,000 polling stations to stream footage of ballot boxes and vote-counting onto a web site during the election.
Thousands of opposition activists as well as an international observer mission are also monitoring the polls. Exit polls will be released shortly after voting ends.
Russia's 59-year-old "alpha-dog" leader had to fight a tough campaign after initially misjudging the significance of the biggest protests of his 12 years in power.
The protests were sparked by the disputed Dec. 4 election, but the anger was focused against Putin, who bungled the Sept. 24 announcement of his presidential bid by appearing simply to inform Russians that he would rule for another six years.
Russia's opposition leaders, a fragmented group of activists, journalists and bloggers, are preparing rallies for the day after the vote and say the election is slanted in Putin's favour even without the vote rigging they expect.
Navalny has said Putin's election cannot be legitimate and called for more protests, including tent camps in Moscow.
Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Uhhh???
Who is he hoping to "convince"...???
Sounds like just one more KGB "confidence game" they used to work against Soviet Russia's "enemies"...
Now it seems that Putie has focused his KGB "finesse" on his own fellow Russians...
People DO get the government they deserve.
Vlad will again prove it...
Don't know why they even have election's in Russia, waste of time knowing who will win four years in advance.
The Russians just need to rewrite the constitution that they have, like we did when we elected someone too many times. This prevent corruption of power.
Their constitution isn't all that bad. It's a modern day version of England's.
The thing is, Russia is a lot larger than England and more resembles a Federal Republic. What makes their history different is the plutocracy comes from the same group of people unlike a Madison and Jefferson debut.
Sounds like the game that Iran played the other day! Like the student said who else is there to vote for? If you don't vote for Putin, it's as if you will have a death sentence against you!
Can you imagine having the present president in the U.S. till 2024?? Oh God Please Help Us!!!!!!
hell yes! Obama till 2024!
Well,when Roosevelt,one of our greatest Presidents died in office.He was in office for his 4th term.Had he not died he would have been 16 years in office.And he might have ran for another couple of terms,if his health allowed.It was after that we changed to only permit 2 terms as President.Many countries allow multiple terms in office for President,and many have term limits.Either way is not that extraordinary.Our good friend in the Republic of Georgia.That we claim is a democracy,gained power in a coup,and is in his third term as President.Another friend of ours,the President of Kazakhstan has ruled since the fall of the USSR.All these anti-Putin stories we see are because he won't kowtow to the west,period.You hear from these so-called activists that "there is no choice in the election".So,why don't they field a candidate against him if they thought that.The people running against Putin,are the choices of the parties they represent.Just like here, to get on the ballot you have to have a level of support,its the same in Russia.I think if I remember,its 5% in Russia.The polls showed the Communist candidate at around 15% and the ultra-nationalist at 10%,that leaves 10-15% for the other 2.The opposition,I've read,has told their supporters to vote for anybody but Putin.We should see by the votes,what level of support they really have after this.If one of the other guys has a big spike in votes,that might prove something.If not it will show how small a group we are supporting.There are hundreds,if not thousands,of monitors watching the election,as well as camera records on who voted.Looks to me like it should be as fair as any election anywhere would be.Certainly as fair as Florida and Ohio were in 2000 and 2004.We in the US should learn a bit about people like Alexei Navalny,before thinking he is this great "democrat" in Russia.I found this piece on him and on support for Putin ,rom a British conservative newspaper.
Western liberals seldom mention Navalny’s other side, a caustic Russian nationalism that has led him into the sordid company of neo-Nazis.
Westerners tend to accept his claim that a creepy video, in which he used the word ‘cockroaches’ to refer to terrorists from the Caucasus, is a joke.
Some joke. While actual cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he says in the 2007 recording, ‘for humans I recommend a pistol’.
Guardian readers and BBC types, currently lionizing Navalny, would rightly cast him into outer darkness if he were an Englishman who held comparable views.
The same point was made to me by Dmitry (I have decided not to use his surname), a worker for a Moscow small business, introduced to me by a Putin critic, and absolutely not a plant.
‘Foreigners like meeting people who are protesting against something,’ he scoffs. ‘If I look at the whole political spectrum from Left to Right, I can see only one candidate to whom we can trust the future of my country, and that is Putin.’
His main motivation is a hatred of the Western-dominated Yeltsin era, and a strong patriotic pride. Dmitry says Putin saved the integrity of the country by crushing the Chechen revolt – something Yeltsin tried and failed to do, with equal brutality but much less foreign criticism.
‘In 1999, our country was on the edge of falling apart. If we had lost Chechnya, we could have lost the whole North Caucasus and been reduced in the end to a rump state of Muscovy. That would have been the end of Russia.’
We should not underestimate the feeling of wounded patriotism in a country which – not unreasonably – feels itself constantly vulnerable to invasion.
Nor should we neglect the millions of older people who have – under Putin – received their pensions regularly, and been able to save without fear of inflation, thanks to the Moscow government’s prudent and astute use of oil revenues.
The mother of an old friend of mine, a naval widow who lived most of her life in conditions of unbelievable Soviet drabness, now looks forward to regular holidays on Turkish Mediterranean beaches.
As for corruption, Dmitry snorts at Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption campaign. And, as so often, the loathed name of Boris Yeltsin comes up. He recalls Yeltsin, in the Eighties, as Moscow’s Communist Party boss, abandoning his chauffeured car, travelling on a crowded trolleybus and making a great show of his incorruptibility.
‘It made him very popular. But he ended up as the most corrupt of all. He destroyed everything that was good from the Soviet times. It was wasted and given away. The gap between the very rich and the very poor was greater than ever.
‘He ended up totally, totally corrupt and gave everything away to the oligarchs.’
I think this explains a bit about our friend Navalny,and also on Putin's support among Russians.A final comment on Navalny is,that while I've never seen him giving the Nazi salute.The demonstrators I've seen him with,were flying the Black,Yellow,and White Nationalist colors.And I've seen people with those colors doing the Nazi salute before.
Dont this russians have anybody else besides Putin. Does he want to go on ruling the russians forever and ever. I do agree that he has a good body but does this guy really have the brains to develop the country. This guy is just another tyrant and despot like his earlier communist comrades. I wish the russian people would use their brains and kick this idiot out of his seat
It's not important to Putin and his FSB henchmen of what the camera sees at the polling stations.
As they say in Russia, it's not important who votes or how, it's important who counts the votes.
Exactly smarg, you seem to know it so well. Some years earlier saddam hussein had a election in Iraq and he won 99.97% of the votes by arranging his cronies to stuff the ballot boxes with votes in his favour. The whole election process was actually a sham for the cameras
Russia political opposition, are they paid to call a protest against Puttin?, because personal remarks is placed against Puttin instead of the issues of the country. The same with American opposition, namely the GOP party. They have focus their remarks at the individual for political gains rather than the issues that is of more concern to America. Checks and balance are a good thing to regulate the powers that be. A strong Russia will put america on stand-off that will save americans tax dollar from being spent on wars not neccesary. Terroism can be best dealt with when two or more countries pull together and share a comman network to track terroist. America attemt to go it alone draining americans hard work tax dollars is stupid, unlike politician fashion shows walking the run-way exposing themselves as fools.
lets hope that Putin will be able to continue to play a useful role in international affairs and assist his country domestically. All the best
Putin will win easily, but the Western media will keep its focus in a couple of thousands protesters and bloggers paid by NGOs from Europe and the US, including our embassy and its new ambassador in Moscow.
Russia has around 150 million people a few thousands do not represent the country, they will vote for Putin and that's it.
Romillio, your comment is right on the mark. Glad to see that we have some people who actually think and read.
Putin is merely emulating Viktor Lukashenko- though with far greater subtlety.
Lukashenko has been described- accurately- as the last European dictator.
He came to power in Belorussia after it seceded from the Soviet union in 1991, drafted a constitution, and ran elections in 1994.
He has since then eliminated or imprisoned all political opponents, suspended parliament, and still rules with the help of one of the most effective and feared secret police organizations in the world.
Putin now has sufficient influence to accomplish a similar coupe.
I'd be amazed if he didn't- though one striking difference between Putin and Lukashenko remains clear: Putin has improved life for most in Russia- while Lukashenko has improved life for Lukashenko.
Sometimes the reasons for pursuing power are more important than the tactics used to attain it- but we'll know for sure after Putin "wins" the coming "elections".
After all, it didn't take long for Bush to make his agendas clear after he "won" his second term.....
More info on Belorussia: http://www.squidoo.com/FreeBelarus
In all fairness- Condoleezza Rice, under George W. Bush, was closely involved in the institution of economic sanctions against Belorussia for Viktor Lukashenko's egregious violations of basic human rights.
In my book, this only makes our failures (under Bush and Obama) to at least revoke the "most favored nation" status of China or, ideally, to suspend trade with China altogether even more disgusting and inconsistent.
Congrats on your win Dictator Putin!