Image by Anastasiya Fedorenko
Russian President Vladimir Putin is on his way to being elected to a fourth, six-year term as the president of the Russian Federation. From the Pacific coast to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, polling stations will stay open for 22 hours across Russia’s massive geographical expanse.
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“Opinion polls give Putin, the incumbent, support of around 70 percent, or nearly 10 times the backing of his nearest challenger. Another term will take him to nearly a quarter century in power — a longevity among Kremlin leaders second only to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin,” reported Reuters.
The only possible candidate who could give Putin a scare is opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. However, Navalny was conveniently prevented from running due to a corruption conviction many say was politically motivated.
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President Putin cast his vote at a Moscow polling station and when asked what percentage he desired, declared to reporters he will accept any percentage that allows him to continue as president.
“Any [percentage] that allows fulfilling presidential duties,” Putin said when asked which percentage of votes he would consider as successful. Putin stressed: “I’m sure that the program which I suggest for the country is right.” Later Putin had a brief meeting with mass media representatives. “I will have several meetings with workers today,” he said, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
Russia’s Election Commission stated it was the target of a denial of service attack on its servers during the election.
“On March 18, we repelled a DDoS attack [A Distributed Denial of Service] against the website between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. The peak of the attack was at 02.20 a.m. Moscow Time. The sources were located in 15 countries,” wrote TASS.
