MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday secured his political future, paving the way for a former KGB agent to stay in power until 2036 as a large number of voters backed the controversial national referendum.
Over 200 constitutional amendments have been proposed in the referendum, one of which will reset presidential boundaries, with Putin again vying for a job in 2024 and 2030.
The official result is that after calculating 98 percent of the ballots, former KGB officials who have ruled Russia for more than two decades easily won the right to contest the presidency or prime minister for two and six years, Reuters reported.
According to the Central Election Commission, 78 percent of the votes cast in the world's largest country supported the constitutional change. More than 21 per cent of voters said they would vote.
The Russian leader, who has been president for 20 years, made vague promises of patriotic constitutional amendments and securing Russia's future.
The Kremlin was interested in reducing the length of Putin's office, so more than 200 other issues were put to the public in the elections. But they are much more than the fine print on the ballots.
Russia is so legit about voting in elections, that it is almost a week to close the polling stations between online voting and the coronavirus pandemic.
Along with the voter, however, a new aspect of Wednesday's polls is that the voting ceases in many parts of the country, with the results being announced by the Central Election Commission.
At noon in Moscow, the election results of Russia's Far East (seven hours before the Russian capital) were announced, with 1 percent of the ballots counted.
Afternoon, with about four hours left for voters to cast their ballots in Moscow, election officials announced that 73 percent of voters would support the proposed amendment.
Russia's central election commission later described these "real-time" results as a way to add transparency to the electoral process.
Putin first proposed a constitutional shakeup in January, and the vote was originally scheduled for April 23. But the outbreak of COVID-19 forced the Kremlin to change its political plans - Russia's outbreak made it the second-largest country in the world. May.
In late May, the Kremlin decided to wait a long time and pushed local leaders to lift the COVID-19 lockdown, paving the way for a nationwide referendum on July 1.
Coronaviruses continue to have their influence on the campaign for constitutional change.
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In Moscow polling stations on Wednesday, masks and gloves were issued after voters entered. However, Putin did not appear to be voting in the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The amendment is in some doubt, but with more voters in the Russian election, the Kremlin said the voting results were a valid expression of the public will.
As a result, there has been a lot of effort this year to get the Russians out of their homes - where they are avoiding the Covid-19 by some authorities - and vote for the proposed amendments.
The government has given raffle prizes to hairdressers, from hair dryers to new apartments, and the city government in Moscow has hosted a contest called "Million Prize", which includes about 145 million vouchers. The dollar was promised. Various items.
In Moscow and the city of Nizhny Novgorod, officials also used online voting. According to the Central Election Commission, 93 percent of the 1 million people who registered for online voting cast their ballots.
Putin's political opponents quickly documented these manipulations.
The Anti-Corruption Movement of Anti-Corruption Leader Alexei Navalny showed a video in which a polling station was taken to present a ballot on behalf of a family that had not previously voted.
There was also a small protest in Moscow on Wednesday night.
The outcome does not set Putin's future in stone. This would probably pave the way for power to remain in power until 2036 - giving him the longest reign of Russia since Peter the Great.
But he will have to run two more presidential campaigns, and if he chooses to do so, the question will be how many people will come out to vote.
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