Putin wins presidential elections by landslide

MOSCOW, March 19 (KUNA) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has been reelected for a second consecutive term and fourth term overall by the overwhelming majority of voters on Sunday.
He won 76.4 percent of the votes counted so far, the Central Election Commission of Russia (CEC) said in a night update after counting the 93 percent of the votes.
Pavel N. Grudinin - the candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), came second with 12 percent of votes, followed by leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky who got 5.8 percent of the votes.
Ksenia Sobchak - the candidate of the People's Freedom Party or Civic Initiative, got 1.5 percent, Grigory Yavlinsky - the candidate of the Russian United Democratic Party or Yabloko, got 0.9 percent, and the candidates of the Party of Growth Boris Titov and the Communists of Russia Maxim Suraykin got 0.7 percent each.
The candidate of Russian All-People's Union Sergey Baburin won just 0.6 percent of votes.
The rest of the votes to be counted are unlikely to change these preliminary results, the CEC said, affirming that Putin won by landslide a six-year term in office. (end) as.gb