vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #609 / Special reports / Reading article...

Dmitry Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand-picked candidate, unsurprisingly cruised to an easy victory in Sunday’s presidential election, receiving 70.2 percent of the vote. In the remote Far Eastern regions of Russia, the numbers for Medvedev varied from 63 percent in Magadan to a massive 81.4 percent in Chukotka.

According to preliminary results, support for Medvedev was below the Russian average not only in Magadan but in all other regions of the Far East, excluding Chukotka which is governed by a powerful billionaire, Roman Abramovich.

The average vote for Medvedev in the Far Eastern regions was calculated at 64.89 percent with Primorye showing an even lower figure than that – 63.84 percent. Sakhalin region gave 63.52 percent of the vote to Medvedev and Amur region came close with 63.56 percent.

Khabarovsk territory cast 64.8 percent of the vote for Medvedev, while Jewish Autonomous Region and Yakutia showed higher percentages of loyalty– 67.39 and 67.9 percent correspondingly. Kamchatka region was also favorable to Medvedev with 69.39 percent of the vote cast for him.

Medvedev was followed by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov who gathered 19.22 percent of the vote in the Far East of Russia while the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky was supported by 12.76 percent. Finally, Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov collected only 1.6 percent of the vote.

The voting turnout in the Far East reached 67.88 percent. The Primorye region showed 64.28 percent of the turnout but mostly thanks to the rural areas of the region. In Vladivostok, the turnout at the voting booths reached only 49 percent.

According to the head of Primorye's election commission Sergei Knyazev, no voting irregularities were registered during the presidential elections in the region.