Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
His opponent got 0.04% of the votes …
Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia for a quarter of a Century.
True, he did have a 4-year-stint as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012, because the Russian constitution did not allow for a President to sit for three terms in a row at the time.
But to the surprise of pretty much noone, Putin got reelected as Russian President in 2012. That wasn’t the main headline from that election.
That was that Putin got 107% of the votes in a region, Russia had just waged war on.
Eeeh – what?
Danish news media DR and NBC News wrote at the time, that Putin got 107% of the votes in Precinct 451 in the capital Grozny in Chechnya – a region, Russia had just been at war with twice at the time.
Putin got 1,482 votes and (former Communist leader Gennady) Zyuganov got one. Impressice indeed, but there were only 1,389 people registered to vote in the precinct.
That means the turnout was 107 percent …
Busses driving voters to several polling stations
In other parts of Chechnya, there were reports of voters being driven from polling station to polling station, voting at them all.
All in all, Putin got 99% of the votes in the region, where he had jut brutally but down a seperatist movement.
His opponent got .04% of the votes.
Sources: DR, NBC, ITV
