The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was re-elected with around 87.3% of the votes, according to results released this Monday (18) by the Central Election Commission of Russia (CEC).
The result means that Putin will rule at least until 2030, when he will be 77 years old. As Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, he will secure a third full decade of rule.
The head of Russia’s electoral commission said that turnout in the country’s presidential elections, which concluded on Sunday (17), reached 77.44%, a post-Soviet record.
Putin has tightened his control over the country he has ruled since the turn of the century, with the almost complete results of elections organized in Russia indicating a predictably large victory for the Kremlin leader, in an outcome that was a foregone conclusion.
With most opposition candidates dead, imprisoned, exiled or barred from running – and with dissent effectively banned in Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – Putin has faced no credible challenge to his government.
In a victory lap at his election headquarters on Sunday, Putin said the election had “consolidated” national unity and that there were “many tasks ahead” for Russia as it continues its course of confrontation with the West.
“No matter how much anyone tries to scare us, whoever tries to suppress us, our will, our conscience, no one has ever managed to do such a thing in history, and it won’t happen now and it won’t happen in the future. Never,” he said.
