Russia’s Vladimir Putin wins by big margin

[BBC]  Vladimir Putin will lead Russia for another six years, after securing an expected victory in the presidential election.

A Russian state exit poll gave him 73.9% of the vote, easily defeating his closest competitor.

The main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was barred from the race.

The scale of victory – which had been widely predicted – was a marked increase in his share of the vote from 2012, when he won 64% of votes.

A state exit poll put the turnout at 63.7%, down on 2012. Mr Putin’s campaign had hoped for a large turnout, to give him the strongest possible mandate.

Video recordings from polling stations showed irregularities in a number of towns and cities across Russia. Several videos showed election officials stuffing boxes with ballot papers.

Early results showed that with just 21.3% of boxes counted, Mr Putin had almost 72% of the votes.

Exit polls, published as soon as voting ended, showed that Mr Putin’s closest opponent, Pavel Grudinin, was only projected to win 11.2%.

Mr Navalny was excluded from the election because of an embezzlement conviction that he said was manufactured by the Kremlin.