Tuesday, March 6, 2012

107 percent turnout? Another side to Russia's vote

By msnbc.com and news services

Results from a war-torn Russian republic shed light on probable irregularities in the election that secured Vladimir Putin his third term as president on Sunday, according to a correspondent with NBC News' British partner ITV News.

The prime minister?? who previously served twice as the country's president?? won with almost 64 percent of the vote over the weekend.

But he won 99.82 percent of the vote in Chechnya on Sunday, ITV's?Bill Neely writes in his blog on Tuesday.


"It's remarkable, because Putin attacked Chechnya twice in appallingly brutal wars with its separatists, wars marked by massacre and murder. All that is clearly blood under the carpet."

The turnout in the precinct was really interesting, too, Neely writes:

"For example, look at Precinct 451 in the capital Grozny,where Putin got 1,482 votes and (former Communist leader Gennady) Zyuganov got one. Terrific vote. Except that only 1,389 people were registered to vote in the precinct. That means the turnout was 107 percent."

Dozens arrested at anti-Putin protests

Reports by the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) highlighted problems with the? election.?

However, Putin's victor elicited more muted responses from the European Union and from the United States, both of which called for an "independent" investigation of fraud accusations but said they would work with the president in his new role, according to The New York Times.??

Could Vladimir Putin be in power until 2024? 10 key questions about Russia's elections

On Monday, Russian riot police detained more than 500 people who either attended unsanctioned protests in Moscow and St. ?Petersburg or refused to disperse after a peaceful rally that had been permitted on Pushkin Square in central Moscow.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10592169-107-percent-turnout-another-side-to-russias-vote

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