Russian President Vladimir Putin won his fifth presidential election, securing the Russian leader another six years and tightening his grip over the country in an election that offered voters no viable alternatives to his rule.
Russia’s Central Election Commission said Putin obtained nearly 88% of the vote, with 24% counted, according to the Associated Press. The election was the first since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, which came just one month after the death of Putin’s largest critic, Alexei Navalny.
Only three other candidates were allowed on the ballot — Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party, Vladislav Davankov of the centrist New People Party, and Leonid Slutsky of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
Navalny‘s supporters showed up at polling stations at noon to protest the Kremlin, a coordinated effort that the Russian dissident leader endorsed before he died. The protest, called “Noon Against Putin,” occurred on the last day of voting in the Russian presidential election.
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The protest was unlikely to alter the outcome of the election, as there were no opposition-aligned candidates to vote for, however, large lines were spotted in multiple polling locations, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, as protesters took part in the display, and dozens were arrested, according to OVD Info, an organization that monitors human rights. Russian-occupied oblasts in Ukraine also took part in the election.
Though this is Putin’s fifth presidential term, he has effectively held power for 25 years, beginning with his appointment as prime minister by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1999. He proceeded to win the presidential election that year. He served as Prime Minister again under Dmitri Medvedev from 2008 to 2012, as he reached his presidential term limit, before controversially coming back to power as president in 2012 — a position he has remained in ever since.
