Vladimir Putin mentioned the modifications have been wanted to make sure Russia’s future “stability, safety, prosperity”
Moscow:
Russians overwhelmingly accepted a bundle of constitutional modifications in a nationwide vote, partial outcomes confirmed Wednesday, permitting President Vladimir Putin to doubtlessly lengthen his two-decade rule till 2036.
With 60 % of ballots counted after the top of seven days of voting, 76.9 % of voters had supported the reforms, the central election fee mentioned.
There had been little doubt of voters backing the modifications, which Putin introduced earlier this 12 months and critics denounced as a manoeuvre to permit him to remain within the Kremlin for all times.
However high Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny slammed the outcomes as a “enormous lie” which do not replicate actual public opinion.
The amendments had been handed weeks in the past by Russia’s parliament and copies of the brand new structure have been already on sale in bookshops, however Putin had mentioned voter approval was important to present them legitimacy.
The reforms embrace conservative and populist measures — like assured minimal pensions and an efficient ban on homosexual marriage — however crucially for Putin additionally reset presidential limits permitting him to run twice once more after his present six-year time period expires in 2024.
Turnout as of 2000 GMT was about 65 %, the election fee mentioned.
The Kremlin pulled out all of the stops to encourage voting, with polls prolonged over almost every week, the final day of voting declared a nationwide vacation and prizes — together with residences, automobiles and money — on provide to voters.
Initially deliberate for April 22, the referendum was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic however rescheduled after Putin mentioned the epidemic had peaked and officers started reporting decrease numbers of recent circumstances.
‘Stability, safety, prosperity’
In a last enchantment to voters on Tuesday, Putin mentioned the modifications have been wanted to make sure Russia’s future “stability, safety, prosperity”.
State tv confirmed Putin voting Wednesday at his common polling station on the Russian Academy of Sciences, the place he was handed a poll by an electoral employee sporting a surgical masks and gloves.
Wearing a darkish go well with and tie, Putin was not sporting any protecting gear.
At a polling station in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, 79-year-old Valentina Kungurtseva instructed AFP she supported the reforms.
“For us as pensioners, it is essential that they are going to enhance our pension yearly,” she mentioned.
“So long as now we have an excellent president, life can be good,” she mentioned.
Within the second metropolis, Saint Petersburg, 20-year-old Sergei Goritsvetov mentioned he opposed the reforms however doubted it will make any distinction.
“I voted in opposition to and I hope there can be many people, however I do not know what it can change,” he mentioned. “At the least I expressed my opinion.”
Navalny had mentioned Putin, 67 and in energy as president or prime minister since 2000, needs to make himself “president for all times” and known as for a boycott, calling the vote illegitimate.
“Now we have simply watched a present with a deliberate finale,” he wrote on his weblog after polls closed.
“Putin won’t go away himself,” Navalny wrote, “not till we start to come back out to the streets by the lots of of hundreds, by hundreds of thousands.”
The opposition divided and didn’t mount a severe marketing campaign, with some voting “no” and others staying dwelling. There have been solely small protests in central Moscow and Saint-Petersburg Wednesday.
Falling approval scores
Golos, an impartial election monitor, mentioned it had obtained lots of of complaints of violations, together with individuals voting greater than as soon as and claims employers have been placing strain on employees to solid ballots.
Election fee chief Ella Pamfilova denied any issues on Wednesday, saying solely a few violations have been confirmed and they’d don’t have any impact on the end result.
Putin’s approval ranking has fallen in latest months. It stood at 60 % in June in line with pollster Levada, down 20 factors from the months after his re-election in 2018.
Analysts say Putin needed to get the vote over with earlier than Russians — already affected by a number of years of falling incomes — are hit by the total financial influence of the pandemic.
Putin mentioned in a latest interview that he had not determined whether or not to run once more however prompt that a part of the explanation for the presidential reset was to permit Russia’s political elite to concentrate on governing as an alternative of “attempting to find potential successors”.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
Source link
