MOSCOW ? Russian voters headed to the polls on Sunday all but certain to elect Vladimir V. Putin to a six-year term as president, in a prelude to a more suspenseful post-election confrontation between Mr. Putin and the opposition groups that have held four large protests and are now planning to ratchet up their demands for reform.
Dmitry Korotayev/Getty Images
Russian soldiers waited their turn to vote at a polling station in Moscow on Sunday.
Mr. Putin, who is now prime minister, has already been Russia?s pre-eminent leader for 12 years and Sunday?s vote ostensibly stood to affirm his grip on power. But the prospect of more protests, starting with a rally Monday night in Pushkin Square in central Moscow, cast some uncertainty over an election that might otherwise be seen as a referendum in favor of stability.
Some opposition leaders have already called for protests beyond the carefully orchestrated rallies held with government permits ? a move that could provoke a response from the authorities including arrests that so far have not been seen at the big demonstrations in Moscow.
The popular anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny said he would lead an unsanctioned march to the Kremlin after Monday?s rally, and he has called for a permanent encampment of demonstrators, a ?tent city? like those that have characterized some Occupy movements in the West. ?People need to go out on the streets and not leave until their demands are met,? he said in a television interview.
Even with opinion surveys showing Mr. Putin well-positioned to win the presidency outright with more than 60 percent of the vote, the election has been Russia?s most unpredictable since 1996 when President Boris N. Yeltsin was forced into a second-round runoff by the Communist leader, Gennady A. Zyuganov.
Many voters who backed Mr. Putin said they were ambivalent, indicating both growing fatigue and a general sense that there was no viable alternative. ?I will not say who I am voting for,? said Anastasia Ryabukhina, 20, a student at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations. ?But think about it yourself: of all of them, Putin is the most realistic candidate.?
Mr. Putin, who did little traditional campaigning and would not debate his opponents, nonetheless engaged in some of the most aggressive election-year politicking of his career. He postponed for six months the annual increase in utility fees ? the largest expense for most Russian families ? increased pensions and military salaries, and promised an avalanche of new government spending.
He has employed anti-American rhetoric, accusing Washington of trying to stoke revolution in Russia as well as in the Middle East. And he has appealed to nationalist pride. ?We still have much to do for our Russia and for our people,? he said at a rally. ?And we will do it based on the talent of our people, on our great history, which is written with the blood and sweat of our forefathers.?
Mr. Putin has also sought to reinforce the image of muscular leadership that has always been his trademark. He flew to the city of Astrakhan near the Caspian Sea last week to oversee the distribution of government aid to victims of a gas explosion that destroyed residential apartments. He met with families and even escorted some to prospective new homes.
Of course, Mr. Putin?s victory was never in doubt. He faced three, well-worn opponents whom he had defeated in previous elections ? including Mr. Zyuganov ? and one newcomer, Mikhail D. Prokhorov , a billionaire industrialist and owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, who mustered the two million signatures needed to get on the ballot but had no party to support him and no political experience.
And yet, the country seemed palpably on edge. On Saturday, Danila Lindele, an opposition journalist sent out a Tweet: ?A feeling that tomorrow is the end of the world.?
As is customary on Election Day in this still relatively young democracy, tens of thousands of police officers were mobilized in a show of order and security.
On Sunday, thousands of observers fanned out to polling stations, most of them ? in accordance with Russian election law ? aligned with a candidate, but also nearly 700 international observers. Scattered reports of irregularities began ping-ponging across the Internet by mid-Sunday morning and continued through the day, including accusations of ?carousel voting? in which the same people cast absentee ballots at multiple polling stations.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8fd98a3c401c9cc790bdb51377d0a42c
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