Medvedev wins Russian presidential election, Exit polls

www.chinaview.cn 2008-03-03 04:28:09

MOSCOW, March 2 (Xinhua) --

Dmitry Medvedev, first prime minister of Russidan President Putin's cabinet, won over 70 percent of the votes in Sunday's presidential election, according to exit polls.

Medvedev has won 70.1 percent of votes, according to the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM). Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov was left far behind with 16.8 percent. Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky won 11.4 percent and Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov 1.7 percent.

The center polled 186,066 voters at 1,000 polling stations in 62 regions of Russia. The error does not exceed 1.7 percent, the organization said.

According to the first preliminary results published by the Central Election Commission (CEC), Medvedev won 64.54 percent of the votes from nearly 16 percent of all received ballots.

Zhirinovsky refused to recognize results of Sunday's presidential voting published by the CEC. He vowed to challenge the results in court, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

"Certainly, we will appeal to court ... I will not abandon my voters, I will stay together with them till the end," Zhirinovsky said.

Zyuganov also said he would appeal to court over alleged election falsifications.

"I have proof to election falsifications and will appeal to court," he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

As of 19:00 Moscow time (1600 GMT), the voters turnout was about 64 percent, higher than the figure in 2004 presidential election, when it hit 61 percent, Chairman of the Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov said on Sunday evening.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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