Russian Election Commission Officially Approves Putin's 5th Term with '87% Vote Share'... "A Historic Record"

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia [Image source=Yonhap News]

Russian President Vladimir Putin officially secured his fifth term with a vote share of 87.28%.

Ella Pamfilova, Chairwoman of the Russian Central Election Commission, declared on the 21st (local time), "The election commission unanimously agreed. Putin has been elected as the President of the Russian Federation."

With the adoption of the resolution on the presidential election results held from the 15th to the 17th by the election commission, the official recognition process of President Putin's fifth-term victory was completed. Having succeeded in his fifth term following 2000, 2004, 2012, and 2018, President Putin will lead Russia for another six years until 2030.

The officially announced vote share of 87.28% matches the preliminary election results announced by the election commission on the 18th. This is the highest vote share ever recorded in a Russian presidential election.

Chairwoman Pamfilova stated that a total of 76,277,708 people voted for President Putin. Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation received 4.31%, Vladislav Davankov of the New People party received 3.85%, and Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia received 3.20%, ranking second to fourth respectively.

This presidential election was the first in Russia to conduct voting over three days and to introduce online voting. The voter turnout was 77.49%, also the highest ever in a Russian presidential election. Chairwoman Pamfilova emphasized this as a "historic record," noting that 87,576,075 voters participated, saying, "Such figures have never appeared in modern Russian history."

Abroad, 388,791 voters from 144 countries participated in the election. While the West criticized this election as neither free nor fair and labeled it fraudulent, Chairwoman Pamfilova responded, "They will never understand us."

She stated, "Corrupt Western officials hastily declared the election 'undemocratic, not free, and illegal,'" emphasizing that although many countries do not adopt direct elections, which are a key feature of democracy, Russia's president was elected through direct elections. She further claimed that this election demonstrated a high level of reliability and legitimacy. She explained that although disruptive acts such as pouring green liquid into ballot boxes or setting fires occurred at some polling stations, no election results were canceled at any polling station.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.