Putin wins by landslide

2004-03-14 21:00

Yana Dlugy

Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin stormed to a crushing re-election victory on Sunday, getting 69% of the vote in the nation's third post-Soviet presidential election, according to exit polls.

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% with Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov a distant second with 12%.

In third place was the vote "against all," with 5.7% 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% needed to make the poll valid melted away, with 61.18% of voters having cast their ballots by 16:00 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% 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 told the Fox News Sunday program.

"Russians have to understand that to have full democracy of the kind the international community will recognise, 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.

Putin's popularity is reinforced by the revving economy, which grew 7.3% in 2003, and a booming stock market.

- AFP