(Q: What kind of candidate do you like?
A: One who gives himself to his work.
- In Russian “burns at work”)
Photo: Andrei Bilzho
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Vladimir Putin is in Ninth Place
// A Socialist Contest
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia for the second time with 69% of the vote, according to exit polls conducted at polling stations. His closest rival, Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), lagged by more than 56% with 12.6% of the vote. In these elections Mr. Putin competed not so much with the other candidates as with his colleagues, that is, the presidents of countries of the former USSR. In this outside competition, Russia’s head of state did not even make the list of top five leaders.
According to polls conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), Vladimir Putin received 69% of the vote; Nikolai Kharitonov, 12.6%; Duma deputy from the Rodina faction Sergein Glazev and former co-leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) Irina Khakamada, 4.7% each; Duma deputy from the LPDR Oleg Malyshkin, 2.3%; and chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, 1%. A total of 5.7% of voters voted against all.
The one and only intrigue of yesterday’s elections disappeared at 16.00 Moscow time, when according to information of the Central Election Committee (TsIK), voter turnout in Russia as a whole reached 51.8%, surpassing the required minimum of 50%. By 19.30 (when the TsIK gave the last information on turnout), 61.2% of citizens with the right to vote had already voted.
Putin received almost 70% of the vote, which was a lot less than the 80% some sociologists (e.g., Yury Levada, head of the Levada Center analytical service) promised the incumbent president as late as mid-February. However, opinion polls conducted by FOM in late February and early March recorded a significant decline in Putin’s rating. Judging from the fact that this happened right after the dismissal of Mikhail Kasyanov’s government and the appointment of the new prime minister, the drop in popularity was connected with the president’s actions, which were something of a mystery to the average voter. Nevertheless, even this diminished result allowed Vladimir Putin to not only improve his own four-year-old figure (he received 52.9% of the vote in 2000), but also to beat a record that had held since June 1991, when Boris Yeltsin won Russia’s first presidential election with 57.3% of the vote.
At the same time, a comparison of the results of yesterday’s vote with the results of presidential elections in other countries of the former USSR (see table) shows that Putin still cannot compete with his colleagues in the former Soviet republics. The Russian leader was only in ninth place in this outside contest and was showed the worst results of all colleagues who won in the first election round. Putin’s result might have improved somewhat during the overnight vote counting, but this addition is unlikely to close last night’s 5.5% gap between him and his Kyrgyz counterpart.
If the government had not been dismissed and candidate Putin had actually received the promised 80% of the vote, he might have made it into the group of top five leaders ahead of President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev. However, Putin still would have fallen short of the 90% mark showing citizens’ genuine love for their leaders.
The arbitrary category “separation from the nearest rival” presents a similar picture. Putin’s 56% advantage over his second-place rival is an absolute record in Russia: Boris Yeltsin set the previous record, also in 1991, with a 40.5% lead over Nikolai Ryzhkov. But in the championship of the former USSR, Putin ended up in eighth place; this might have been ninth place if there had been any alternatives in the 1992 presidential elections in Turkmenistan. The only ones behind the Russian leader were President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan (21.26%) and President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma (14.25%).
In the absence of Turkmenbashi (President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov), the leaders in this category are President of Tajikistan Emomali Rkhamonov (94.86% lead over his nearest rival) and President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili (94.42%). However, the Georgian leader had the moral advantage, since Mr. Rakhmonov had only one rival, whereas Mr. Saakashvili had five.
Vladimir Putin still has a chance to improve his results in the contest for the most convincing lead over a second- place candidate. If he gains even a couple of percentage points during the vote counting and the number of votes cast for Nikolai Kharitonov decreases by the same amount, Putin could still overtake President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko (60% lead), President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akaev (60.58%), and maybe even President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev (62.87%), although probably not Nursultan Nazarbaev (68.08%).
| Top 10 Election Results Among Current Presidents of CIS Countries |
| # |
Country |
Election date |
Turnout (%) |
Winner |
Percent "for" |
| 1 |
Turkmenistan |
June 21, 1992 |
99.90 |
Saparmurat Niyazov |
99.50 |
| 2 |
Tajikistan |
November 6, 1999 |
98.91 |
Emomali Rakhmonov |
96.97 |
| 3 |
Georgia |
January 4, 2004 |
87.97 |
Mikhail Saakashvili |
96.27 |
| 4 |
Uzbekistan |
January 9, 2000 |
95.10 |
Islam Karimov |
91.90 |
| 5 |
Kazakhstan |
January 10, 1999 |
87.05 |
Nursultan Nazarbaev |
79.78 |
| 6 |
Azerbaijan |
October 15, 2003 |
71.70 |
Ilham Aliev |
76.84 |
| 7 |
Belarus |
September 9, 2001 |
83.86 |
Aleksandr Lukashenko |
75.65 |
| 8 |
Kyrgyzstan |
October 29, 2000 |
77.28 |
Askar Akaev |
74.47 |
| 9 |
Armenia* |
February 19, 2003 |
63.18 |
Robert Kocharyan |
49.48 |
| 10 |
Ukraine* |
October 31, 1999 |
70.15 |
Leonid Kuchma |
36.49 |
* Results of the first round of voting. |
Dmitry Kamyshev
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 15, 2004
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