Dmitry Medvedev gains 65% of vote in presidential election branded a 'cynical stage-show' and criticised for irregularities
IT WAS a succession more than an election. President Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev won Russia's presidential election yesterday by a huge margin.
As exit polls and results came in across the country's vast 11-time zone territo
ry, Mr Medvedev had won at least 65 per cent of the vote.
The Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov trailed with 16.8 per cent and promised legal action over irregularities in the polls, which had few independent observers.
Some voters complained of pressure to cast ballots in Mr Medvedev's favour, and critics called the election a cynical stage-show. "The result doesn't matter as this is an illegitimate transfer of power," said a former prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, a Putin foe barred from the ballot.
Mr Medvedev, a 42-year-old lawyer and loyal Kremlin aide, is expected to take over from Mr Putin. Mr Putin has said he would accept Mr Medvedev's offer of the prime minister's post.
Some have questioned whether Mr Medvedev has the ruthless political instincts needed to rule the Kremlin's clans and the world's biggest country.
His presidency – at least at first – is likely to be defined by his relationship with his mentor. "I think he is well-prepared, educated and modern," the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, said as he cast his ballot.
"He has good experience as a lawyer, he's bright, but there is one drawback – he didn't work at the federal level long enough."
Mr Medvedev, who admits he seems "buttoned-up" in public, will become Russia's youngest leader since the last emperor, Tsar Nikolai II, whom the former corporate lawyer says he admires.
Mr Medvedev, who is several inches shorter than Mr Putin, may have to learn from his patron how to project himself at public events, some say.
But as board chairman of the gas giant Gazprom, Mr Medvedev showed a tougher side than is usually presented by the Kremlin's image makers, who have tried to show Mr Medvedev as a softer, more friendly leader than the former KGB spy, Mr Putin.
Under his tenure at Gazprom, the state export-monopoly cut gas supplies to Ukraine and expanded its clout inside Russia with a spending spree on acquisitions.
But there is no evidence Mr Medvedev has worked for the state security services, who have formed the core of Mr Putin's inner circle of advisers in the Kremlin.
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, born into a family of teachers, is remembered as a bookish child. He says his favourite book was the Soviet Encyclopaedia – similar to Encyclopaedia Britannica – though he also developed a taste for the British bands Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.
"He is very cultured. You can speak to him about the theatre, music. He has a sense of humour," said Natalya Rasskazova, who studied with Mr Medvedev at St Petersburg University's law faculty, where Mr Putin also studied.
"He has not changed. I saw him a year ago and there was no arrogance, he was not high and mighty," she said.
VILLAGERS FIND A VOICEYEVDOKIYA Andreyeva, 82, one of 10 voters registered in a ramshackle, decaying village outside Moscow, was shocked yesterday to discover that her favourite candidate – Vladimir Putin – was not on the ballot list.
"I walked here all this way and you are saying I can't vote for Putin?" she said while still outside the wooden hut doubling as a polling station.
When a passer-by explained that Putin's chosen successor, Dmitry Medvedev, was standing in, she nodded with satisfaction.
"Fine. It will be Medvedev then," she said, turning towards the hut's entrance.
The full article contains 621 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
