Vladimir Putin celebrated a victory in the March 18 presidential election, securing another six years at the helm. But the country’s opposition activists and the non-governmental election monitor Golos warned of ballot stuffing and multiple voting.
The movement of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous opponent, reported hundreds of cases of fraud, notably in Moscow and the region around the capital, Saint Petersburg and Bashkortostan in the Urals.
As reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Navalny himself tweeted a link to a video showing ballot stuffing in a polling station in Russia’s far east.
According to AFP, in the absence of doubt over the outcome, the main focus of the election has become voter turnout – with the Kremlin seeking a strong mandate for Putin and Navalny calling for a boycott of polls he denounces as a sham.
