FOREIGN: Putin Wins Re-Election With Landslide, Set For Another 6 Year-Term

Russian President Vladimir Putin won a landslide re-election victory on Sunday, extending his rule over the world’s largest country for another six years.

Putin’s victory will take his political dominance of Russia to nearly a quarter of a century, until 2024, by which time he will be 71 as Putin, now 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since 2000.

Putin has promised to use his new term to beef up Russia’s defences against the West and to raise living standards.

In a widely expected outcome, the Central Election Commission, with just over 70 per cent of the votes counted, announced that Putin, who has dominated the political landscape for the last 18 years, had won 75.9 per cent of the vote.

In a victory speech near Red Square, Putin told a cheering crowd he interpreted the win as a vote of confidence in what he had achieved in tough conditions.

“It’s very important to maintain this unity. We will think about the future of our great Motherland,” said Putin, before leading the crowd in repeated chants of “Russia!”

He told a meeting of supporters afterwards that difficult times were ahead, but that Russia had a chance to make “a breakthrough.”

Backed by state TV, the ruling party, and credited with an approval rating around 80 per cent, his victory was never in doubt.

His nearest challenger, Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin, got around 13 per cent, according to partial results, while nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky got around six per cent.

None of the seven candidates who ran against Putin posed a threat, and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was barred from running.

Critics alleged that officials had compelled people to come to the polls to ensure that voter boredom at the one-sided contest did not lead to a low turnout.

Turnout figures will be closely scrutinised.

Russia’s Central Election Commission recognised that there were some irregularities, but was likely to dismiss wider criticism and declare the overall result legitimate.