Vladimir Poutine was triumphantly re-elected for a fourth mandate

With a score largely beyond the forecasts, according to the surveys of exit of the ballot boxes, it is consolidated like the man extremely impossible to circumvent of the country, which it replaced these last years in the forefront on the international scene.

Vladimir Poutine was re–elected with 76.67% of the voices at the time of the Russian presidential election Sunday, March 18, announced the Electoral commission after the calculation of 99.80% of the paper ballots.

Vladimir Poutine thus remains at the Kremlin until 2024, year of his 72 years and 25 years after being designated dolphin by a growing old Boris Eltsine. After examination of 99.80% of the paper ballots, the Electoral commission announced, Monday, March 19, the re–election of the Russian president, 65 years, with 76.67% of the votes. It is much more than the 63.6% obtained in 2012.

It precedes the candidate of the Communist party Pavel Groudinine, which would collect only 11.2% of the voices, in front of the ultranationalist Vladimir Jirinovski (6.7%) and the journalist close to the liberal opposition, Ksénia Sobtchak (2.5%).

The first partial results (30% of the stripped bulletins) gave 73.1% of the voices to Vladimir Poutine, against 14.9% with Pavel Groudinine. The first significant results should be known in the night, indicated Central electoral commission (CEC).

Rate of participation was almost 60% at 11:00, three hours before the closing of the polling stations, according to the same Commission.
But the opposition, and initially the keenest adversary of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny, showed the Kremlin to have made inflate the participation by many frauds, by stuffing the ballot boxes or by organizing massive transport voters towards the polling stations.

“They need participation. The result, it is that the victory of Putin with more than 70% (of the voices) was decided in advance”, explained to the press the opponent, drawn aside from the election because of a legal judgment, which ensured that the real participation was lower than that of 2012.

ONG Golos, specialized in the monitoring of the elections, drew up on its website a map of the frauds which mentions at 17:45 of 2,629 irregularities, such as stuffings of ballot boxes, multiple votes or obstacles with the work of the observers.

The president of the Electoral commission, Ella Pamfilova, however estimated that “there were not as well irregularities as that”.

Symbolically, the poll was held moreover four years day for day after the ratification of fastening of the Crimea, decided at the conclusion dune military operation and of a referendum considered to be illegal by Kiev and the Westerners.

More than 1200 polling stations had opened in the Crimea but much of Tatars, a Muslim community which largely opposed the annexation, did not hope to go to the ballot boxes.

During his speech Sunday evening, Mr. Poutine retorted: “The first thing which comes me to mind, it is that if it had been about a military poison, people would have died on the blow. It is obvious. The second thing, it is that Russia does not have this kind of means. We destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international observers”.

“We were the first to do it, contrary to some of our partners who promised it, but which must unfortunately still keep their promises”, the president added. In this very tended climate, it ensured that Russia was “ready to cooperate” with London.

Boris Johnson also promised a hardening of the legal arsenal intended to fight against corruption and the money laundering. The individuals “who made a fortune thanks to corruption and in link with the Kremlin, with Vladimir Poutine” could have to explain the origin of their goods located at the United Kingdom, under penalty of seizures.

Additional sanctions could be taken by the United Kingdom, announced the chief of the British diplomacy, which must take part Monday in Brussels with a meeting with its European counterparts, like with the general secretary of Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg.

From Moscow, Mr. Poutine ensured that Russia was “ready” “to take part in the investigations necessary”. “For that, it is necessary that the part of opposite (British, note) is also interested. For the moment, we do not see it”.

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Gabriel MIHAI

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