Moscow - Dmitry Medvedev won 70.28 per cent of the vote with
all ballots counted, Russia's election commission said Tuesday,
according to Interfax news agency.
Provisional final results showed Communist Party leader Gennady
Zyuganov had 17.72 per cent, ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky
9.34 per cent and independent candidate Andrei Bogdanov 1.29 per
cent.
Around 69.8 per cent of 109 million eligible voters went to
Sunday's polls. Four years ago, turnout had been 64.4 per cent.
Medvedev's final score was not quite as good as that achieved by
his mentor, outgoing President Vladimir Putin on his re-election in
2004 when he won 71.3 per cent. However, Putin won only 52.9 per cent
of the vote during his first election bid in 2000.
Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Central Election Commission,
rejected criticism by western politicians that Sunday's vote had not
been fair or free.
'Nowhere else is there a more open and effective election
procedure than in Russia,' Churov said in Moscow. Russia was the only
nation in the world that counted votes so exactly, he added.
It was meanwhile reported that more than 50 opposition
demonstrators detained by police in Moscow for participating in an
unauthorised rally are to be hit with fines.
The demonstrators including Nikita Belykh, leader of the small
free-market Union of Right Forces part were arrested Monday and
released the same evening.
Belykh and Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent human rights activist, were
given a fine, Ponomaryov's daughter Yelena Lipzer, a solicitor, told
Interfax news agency.
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