Incumbent Russian leader Vladimir Putin has secured a landslide victory in the presidential election with over 99% of the ballots counted.
Vladimir Putin is now leading with 76,6 percent of the vote, Ella Pamfilova, head of the Russian Central Election Commission. Pamfilova announced the preliminary results during a news conference on Monday morning.
With 99.83 percent of the vote counted, first-time Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin is running second with 11.9 percent. Heavyweight nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who first ran against Boris Yeltsin in 1991, rounds out the top three with 5.66 percent.
The Central Elections Commission (CEC) has now 10 days to tally the final vote, Pamfilova announced.
None of the other five candidates managed to receive more than two percent of the vote.
Pamfilova has said that there were no major violations during the vote, and that only “minor and local complaints” were received.
Shortly after the first results were announced, Vladimir Putin addressed his supporters at a massive anniversary rally in Moscow’s Red Square, marking Crimea's reunification with Russia, and talked to reporters in his election campaign HQ. He thanked his backers and answered questions on the hottest political issues.
Putin was first elected to the Kremlin in 2000, and again four years later. Constitutionally barred from serving more than two consecutive terms, he did not run in 2008, the same year presidential terms were extended from four years to six years. Putin won 63.6 percent of the vote in 2012, and, if the early results are confirmed, he will now stay in his post until 2024, the year he turns 72.
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