Medvedev set for victory in Russian presidential election
Dmitry Medvedev looks sets for victory in Russia's presidential election
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Sunday, 02, Mar 2008 08:17
Vladimir Putin's nominated successor Dmitry Medvedev is set for victory in Russia's presidential election, early results suggest.
The first official results from the Central Election Commission show Mr Medvedev to be holding a substantial lead with more than 64 per cent of the votes from the 16 per cent of polling stations counted.
The state owned pollster VTsIOM claims Mr Medvedev holds almost 70 per cent of the total vote, with his nearest rival the communist party head Gennady Zyuganov on 20 per cent.
Mr Putin, who is stepping down as Russia's president after serving the maximum two consecutive terms allowed by the constitution, previously chose Gazprom's current chairman, Mr Medvedev as his successor.
Mr Medvedev, who currently also holds the post of first deputy prime minister, has said he will nominate Mr Putin as his prime minister if elected.
Television footage has apparently been favourable to Mr Medvedev and billboards on the main streets of Moscow display pictures of the two politicians standing side by side.
The other candidates in today's election were nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and from the democratic party, Andrei Bogdanov.
Two candidates, chess champion Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Kasyanov, were barred from running in the presidential contest over alleged irregularities in gathering the minimum number of signatures to contest in the elections.
Western election observers including the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have refused to send monitors to the polls saying that they would be unable to do their job properly.