As expected, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been elected President of Russia for the fourth time.
The Central Election Commission (of Russia) confirmed on Sunday night that the strongman received more than 76% of the vote, thus, extending his rule over the world’s largest country for another six years. According to a statement issued by the Commission, no other candidate managed to pose a serious threat to the former KGB agent, as his nearest rival Pavel Grudinin of the Communist Party finished a very distant second with around 12% of vote, while nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky received around 6%.

Soon after President Putin registered the landslide re-election victory, he thanked voters, saying that they “recognised the achievements of the last few years”. Meanwhile, he laughed off a question about running again in another six years. “What you are saying is a bit funny. Do you think that I will stay here until I’m 100 years old? No!” the 65-year-old leader told a reporter.
Even after the landslide victory, ‘controversies’ haunt President Putin. Alexei Navalny, the main opposition leader, was barred from taking part in the Presidential Election because of legal issues. It may be conjectured that no one amongst the other seven candidates was strong enough to challenge Putin. According to some experts, the Presidential Poll was an eyewash. The president’s United Russia Party has maximum number of members in the Federal Assembly. The opposition parties claimed that Putin had ‘selected’ other candidates in an attempt to get re-elected. However, the strongman denied the allegation, stressing that Russians elected him once again because of his hard work.

Igor Morozov – a member of the Russian Parliament’s Upper House and a Putin loyalist, said that the result was a vindication of his tough stance towards the West. Speaking at a media conference, he said: “I think that in the US and Britain, they’ve understood they cannot influence our elections. Our citizens understand what sort of situation Russian finds itself in today.”
An exit poll had predicted that Putin would secure nearly 74% of the vote. However, he bagged more than 76%. Most importantly, the scale of victory appears to be a marked 12% increase in his share of the vote from 2012, when he won 64%.

Meanwhile, the Western countries are worried about the outcome of Russian Presidential Poll. The West believes that Putin will become more desperate after the landslide victory. President Putin’s campaign spokesperson Andrei Kondrashkov reportedly thanked Britain for the higher than expected turnout of around 60% following the diplomatic row over the Salisbury spy poisoning. “Once again we were subject to pressure at just the moment when we needed to mobilise,” he stressed.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Front Party congratulated President Putin on Monday, describing the poll result as a sign of Russia’s “stability and democratic foundations”. The party also urged the European Union to “put an end to its absurd and counterproductive politics of blackmail, threats and sanctions” against Moscow.

‘Dorogoy dlinnoyu’ refers to a traditional Russian song that Russian gypsies consider theyrs, means ‘all along a long path’. Puti, however, stands for ‘a path or way’ in Russian.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das