Putin's Chosen Successor, Medvedev, Elected in Russia
Power-Sharing Is Main Focus After A Crushing Win

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 3, 2008

MOSCOW, March 3 -- After 24 hours of voting across 11 time zones, Russians handed Dmitry Medvedev an overwhelming victory in the presidential election Sunday despite a lackluster campaign that was more coronation than contest from the moment President Vladimir Putin endorsed him in December.

With 97 percent of the precincts counted early Monday, Medvedev had more than 70 percent of the vote, according to the Central Election Commission. That percentage nearly matches Putin's tally in 2004 and infuses Medvedev's victory with the numbers to claim a clear mandate for the next four years.

As expected, Medvedev crushed the anemic challenges of three opponents who never had a chance to debate him and were drowned out by a deafening media drumbeat that Medvedev was "Putin's choice" and that his victory would ensure the continuation of the popular president's policies.

The two appeared at a concert in Red Square late Sunday, and Medvedev pointedly spoke first.

"We can maintain the course proposed by Putin," Medvedev told the crowd. "I am certain that we have every chance to do this. We will continue to move ahead together. We will win."

Putin congratulated his protege and noted that "such a victory carries a lot of obligations."

The election commission reported that about 64 percent of Russia's 109 million voters had cast ballots at 96,000 polling stations, a record for a presidential election.

Medvedev was trailed by Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov, who had 18 percent of the vote. Earlier in the counting, ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky had 10 percent and Andrei Bogdanov, an ostensible liberal, 1.5 percent.

"I voted for Medvedev because Zhirinovsky is ridiculous, Zyuganov is too old and I don't know who Bogdanov is," Viktor Fomenkov, 53, a machine operator in Moscow, said after casting his vote. "And Medvedev is the right hand of our president. I believe in him. I believe he will continue the line that our president started."

Opposition figures such as Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster and Putin opponent, said they boycotted the vote, calling it a farce. Potentially vocal opponents, including former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, never got on the ballot.

The opposition charged that regional officials were under government instructions to ensure a healthy majority for the Kremlin's man and that public employees were pressured to vote for Medvedev.

Zyuganov, alleging widespread irregularities, said he would probably challenge the vote in court.

Putin, 55, has said he is willing to serve as prime minister when Medvedev in May becomes the third man to move into the Kremlin since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The campaign failed to clarify how the two will share power, and whether Putin's new role is a temporary station to help Medvedev consolidate his position or a mechanism to allow Putin to continue to dominate the country.

At a news conference early Monday, Medvedev said confidently that Putin would become prime minister and that the division of labor was clearly defined by the constitution, with foreign policy in the hands of the president.

Under the constitution, the president is by far the most powerful figure in Russia. But a Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, backed by his popularity and a parliament that owes allegiance to him, not Medvedev, could be a daunting rival for the new president should the two clash.

"Conflict between Putin and Medvedev is more than possible, not because of their personal relations, which are good, but because of this complicated and controversial configuration of power," said Nikolai Petrov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "The presidency is a colossal instrument, but it will take time for Medvedev to take any independent steps."

At stake and still uncertain is Medvedev's ability to chart a new course for Russia, something he has hinted at over the past two months. He has spoken of increasing personal freedoms backed by the rule of law as well as a scaled-back state role in the economy and a less confrontational stance abroad.

But as a former head of the presidential administration and first deputy prime minister, Medvedev has been a loyal servant of a Kremlin that has stifled political competition at home, brought key sectors of the economy under state control and pursued an increasingly strident foreign policy that is deeply suspicious of the West, particularly the United States.

"Medvedev is at least inclined to liberal declarations," said Mark Urnov, head of the Expertiza, a Moscow research group. "He supports the development of private business, and he is inclined to reduce state interference in the economy. He seems to be more pro-Western than anyone else from Putin's team. But the question is whether any of it is going to be realized. And that depends entirely on the balance of influences."

Medvedev has said, for instance, that cooperation with the United States is "inevitable." But he has also said that "it is easier to work with people who have modern positions than with those who are fixated on the past and sometimes defend half-senile views," an apparent reference to President Bush.

Medvedev's victory was never in doubt, and he has broad appeal. Russians are better off than eight years ago, and they credit Putin for an economic boom fueled by the soaring price of oil and natural gas. The West's concerns about the country's direction away from democracy are dismissed here as self-serving. And the Kremlin and its allies argue that the West is too unforgiving of the difficulties of building democratic traditions in a state they say nearly collapsed in the 1990s.

The leading European watchdog group, the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, declined to monitor the vote, citing restrictions that election authorities placed on their work. Observers from republics of the former Soviet Union were present and are expected to declare the vote free and fair. A report by 23 legislators from the Council of Europe, a human rights monitoring body and the only major Western organization observing the vote, will be issued Monday.

Special correspondent Anna Masterova contributed to this report.