MOSCOW – An exit poll suggests that Vladimir Putin has handily won a fourthterm as Russia’s president, adding six more years in the Kremlin for theman who has led the world’s largest country for all of the 21st century.
The vote Sunday was tainted by widespread reports of ballot-box stuffingand forced voting, but the complaints will likely do little to underminePutin.
Putin’s main challenges in the election were to obtain a huge margin ofvictory in order to claim an indisputable mandate. Exit polls suggest hegot more than 70 percent of the vote.
He faced seven minor candidates on the ballot. Putin’s most vehement andvisible foe, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, was rejected as acandidate because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded aspolitically motivated.