Russian prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a member of United Russia, has won the presidential elections with 63.81% of vote. Gennady Zyuganov, communist leader, got 17.19%, independent candidate Mikhail Prokhorov got 7.78%.
Vladimir Zhirinovski, LDPR leader, got 6.23%, Sergey Mironov, leader of Fair Russia, got 3.84%.
Over 44.9 million people voted for Putin, over 12.1 million for Zyuganov, over 5.4 million for Prokhorov, over 4.3 million for Zhirinovski, over 2.7 million for Mironov.
According to processing of over a third of polling sheets in Moscow, Vladimir Putin got 48.25% of vote. Prokhorov got 19.39%, Zyuganov got 18.96%, Zhirinovski got 6.5%, Mironov got 4.97%.
Putin told journalists that the CIS will be the absolute priority in his policy. He added that attitude towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia would not change, RIA Novosti reports.
At a meeting on Manezhnaya Square last night, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced his victory. He thanked for support and called the elections open and fair. He was assisted by Incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev.
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the government will try to improve the mature civil society and said that there would be no outbursts of Gorbachev’s liberalism.
Sociologist, Lev Gudkov, Director of the Levada Center, predicted Putin’s winning the elections with 63-66% of vote. He also predicted wavy protest mood and escalation of social tensions in autumn. About 3% of the population may start protests. 10% are more likely to start protests. 30% are not ready to take part. About half of the population would not want to protest against falsifications of elections, the sociologist said.
