President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday (Mar 17), cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.
For Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who first rose to power in 1999, the result is intended to underscore to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia, whether in war or in peace, for many more years to come.
The outcome means Putin, 71, is set to embark on a new six-year term that will see him overtake Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years if he completes it.
Putin won 87.8 per cent of the vote, the highest-ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87 per cent. First official results indicated the polls were accurate.
While his victory was never in doubt, the high levels of support and turnout were “a bit surprising”, said Professor Emeritus of Government and International Relations Graeme Gill from the University of Sydney. This “clearly reflects” an attempt to present the election as an overwhelming victory for Putin personally and his policies, especially the war in Ukraine, he said.
Prof Gill noted that much of the Global South, which includes countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa, has been much less supportive of the West on Ukraine and more inclined to either favour Russia or to give Russia the benefit of the doubt.
“What this this electoral outcome is meant to present is the view that that’s the correct position that they should have, that this is a just war, (that) it’s a war that the Russian people support and therefore it’s a war that’s deserving of support in the Global South,” he said.
