OAN’s James Meyers
3:29 PM -Monday, March 18, 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin will stay in power for the next six years, after winning a landslide victory on Monday with no real opposition against the president.
The victory puts Putin in a position to become the longest serving president in Russia in over 200 years.
However, the election was met with visible protest against the vote, which was held just one month after Putin’s biggest political rival, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, suspiciously died in a prison in Russia’s far north.
According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, with nearly 100% of all precincts counted on Monday Putin had won 87.29% of the vote. Commission Chief Ella Pamfilova said that close to 76 million voters allegedly casted their ballots for Putin, which is his highest vote tally ever.
In a press conference on Sunday, Putin applauded the results as an indication of the country’s “trust” in him.
Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the “unbelievable level” of support for Putin was the “best sign that all the speculation about illegal elections is actually ungrounded.”
“Of course, we have lots of tasks ahead. But I want to make it clear for everyone: When we were consolidated, no one has ever managed to frighten us, to suppress our will and our self-conscience. They failed in the past and they will fail in the future,” Putin said at a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Moscow early Monday, hours after the polls closed.
Additionally, during the election, independent monitoring of the voting was reportedly extremely limited.
However, many of Putin’s detractors in the U.S. and other nations have maintained that the Russian leader won unfairly by skewing the election and taking out his opponents.
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