Vladimir Putin said changes are needed to ensure Russia’s future “stability, security and prosperity”
Moscow:
The Russians overwhelmingly approved a package of constitutional changes in a national vote, partial results showed on Wednesday, allowing President Vladimir Putin to potentially extend his reign by two decades until 2036.
With 60% of the votes counted after six days of voting, 76.9% of voters supported the reforms, said the central electoral commission.
There was little doubt that voters supported the changes, which Putin announced earlier this year and critics denounced it as a maneuver to allow him to stay in the Kremlin for life.
But the great critic of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, denounced the results as a “huge lie” which does not reflect real public opinion.
The amendments had been adopted a few weeks ago by the Russian parliament and copies of the new constitution were already on sale in bookstores, but Putin said voter approval was essential to give them legitimacy.
Reforms include conservative and populist measures – such as guaranteed minimum pensions and an effective ban on same-sex marriage – but most importantly for Putin, he also reset presidential limits allowing him to run again twice after his term expires current six years in 2024.
The turnout for 2000 GMT was around 65 percent, the electoral commission said.
The Kremlin has done everything possible to encourage voting, with polls extended over almost a week, the last day of voting declared a national holiday and prices – including apartments, cars and money – were offered to voters.
Originally scheduled for April 22, the referendum was postponed by the coronavirus pandemic, but postponed after Putin said the epidemic had peaked and authorities had started to report a lower number of new cases.
“Stability, security, prosperity”
Putin said in a final appeal to voters on Tuesday that the changes are necessary to ensure the future “stability, security and prosperity” of Russia.
State television showed Putin voting on Wednesday at his usual polling station at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he was handed over by an election official wearing a surgical mask and gloves.
Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Putin wore no protective gear.
In a polling station in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, Valentina Kungurtseva, 79, told AFP that she supported the reforms.
“For us as retirees, it is very important that they increase our pension every year,” she said.
“As long as we have a good president, life will be good,” she said.
In the second city, St. Petersburg, Sergei Goritsvetov, 20, said he was opposed to the reforms, but doubted that it would make a difference.
“I voted against and I hope there will be many of us, but I don’t know what will change,” he said. “At least I have expressed my opinion.”
Navalny had said that Putin, 67, and in power as president or prime minister since 2000, wanted to be “president for life” and called for a boycott, calling the vote illegitimate.
“We have just watched a program with a scheduled finale,” he wrote on his blog after the polls closed.
“Putin will not leave each other,” writes Navalny, “not until we start going out on the streets by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions.”
The opposition split and failed to organize a serious campaign, with some voting “no” and others staying at home. On Wednesday, there were only small demonstrations in the center of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Lower approval ratings
Golos, an independent election observer, said he had received hundreds of complaints of violations, including people who had voted more than once and said that employers were pressuring staff to vote.
Election commission chief Ella Pamfilova denied any problems on Wednesday, saying that only a few violations had been confirmed and would have no effect on the outcome.
Putin’s approval rate has dropped in recent months. He was 60% in June according to pollster Levada, down 20 points from the months following his re-election in 2018.
Analysts say Putin wanted to get the vote before the Russians – who are already suffering from years of declining incomes – are hit by the full economic impact of the pandemic.
Putin said in a recent interview that he had not decided to run again but suggested that part of the reason for the presidential reset was to allow the Russian political elite to focus on government rather than “looking for possible successors”.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
