Putin Takes 86% of Russian Votes in Estonia (4)

Published: 05.03.2012 15:48

Photo: Postimees/Scanpix

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During the Russian presidential elections over the weekend, 86 percent of the nation’s citizens who cast their ballots in Estonia supported Vladimir Putin.

According to the Russian Embassy in Estonia, a total of 31,500 people, or 26.7 percent of voting-age Russian citizens visiting or residing in the country, took part in the elections.

Out of the nine polling stations set up across Estonia (four in both Tallinn and Narva, one in Tartu), the busiest ones were in Tallinn, receiving slightly below 15,000 voters. In Narva the number of voters reached 13,200, while in Tartu the figure remained more modest – 1,500.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Putin’s closest rival, received 6.82 percent of votes given by Russian citizens in Estonia.

The rest of the ballots were divided between Mikhail Prokhorov (3.88 percent), Vladímir Zhirinovsky (2.26 percent) and Sergei Mironov (0.93 percent).

Russia's electoral committee has already declared Putin winner of the elections. He had received 63.7 percent of the votes when nearly 100 percent of the ballots had been counted.

 

Ingrid Teesalu

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Comments (4)

  • Mart Mang

    05.03.2012 19:18

    If Russians living in Estonia can vote in Russian elections, I as a free-born Estonian living in America, would like to vote in the next Estonian election. Please advise me on what the specifics are. Hey, what's good enough for the Russians in Estonia is good enough for me...

  • Bad news is Good news

    05.03.2012 23:59

    Look at the good side of this: only 26.7% of the eligible Russian voters in Estonia bothered to vote. Doesn't that mean that the other 73.3% didn't consider it worthwhile to vote in this rigged election, the outcome of which was always clear? 3/4 of all Russians in Estonia did not bother to show support for Putin most likely because they don't really like him.

  • avatar

    knut_albers

    12.03.2012 16:55

    If only 26.7% bothered to vote, then this is not really good news toward democracy. For example, Estonia's last parlamentary election formed a coalition that consists of 49.1%, meanwhile the overall turnout was 63.5%. Only the impending mandate lead to a mojority government (+2.XX%) and more than a third of the eligible voter did not participate in the elections. So, in fact less than half of the population gets to tell the majority, how to live, what to wear, where to stand in line, and how much to pay. That is the reason I kind of evolved into a Libertarian that made the most sense to me, because it offers a vision of the world in which the things that are most important to us oppose to saying what we have to do. In Estonia the situation is much better than in Russia, where there seems to be still a great support for strong leaders such a czar Putin. But even in Germany, the Social Democrats promoted their policies in order to get "things straight" during Mr. Schroeder's terms. It is really frightening and also in Estonia the often authoritarian treatment of minorities is undeniable, though. I think we are still at the very beginning to discover our individuality and personal freedom and our very identities in this world. Politically speaking, there are still incredibly narrow range of choices that we actually have in any demcoracy, between "political correctness" and different kinds of ethnic slurs.

  • Estonian

    16.03.2012 11:57

    "Putin Takes 86% of Russian Votes in Estonia"...and purchases remaining 14%?