Medvedev wins Russia election: exit poll

President Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev has won Russia's presidential election on Sunday by a huge margin, according to an exit poll from state-owned pollster VTsIOM. VTsIOM said Medvedev had won 69.6 percent of the vote, way ahead of his nearest challenger, veteran Communist Gennady Zyuganov, on 17.2 percent.
Opinion polls had consistently predicted a huge Medvedev win right from the moment in December last year when Putin picked him as his preferred successor. Many voters credit Putin with Russia's biggest economic boom in a generation and see Medvedev as the best option to keep their new-found prosperity and guard against a return to the economic crises of the 1990s. A 42-year-old lawyer from St Petersburg, Medvedev has worked with Putin for 18 years, most recently as chairman of Russia's gas giant Gazprom and first deputy prime minister.
The Kremlin has promoted him as a Putin continuity candidate, though relatively little is known about his political beliefs and priorities. Medvedev limited himself during the campaign to one, paid-for interview, shunned many foreign media and gave only a couple of programme speeches which mostly stressed continuity with Putin.
Opposition politicians, some of them barred from running, complained that biased media coverage, harassment of challengers and massive official support for Medvedev had turned the whole affair was a farce. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed criticism, saying a forecast high turnout "speaks to the active political participation of the people of Russia and many of them are choosing to vote for a continuation of the changes".
Election officials said turnout was likely to be up to 70 percent, higher than the 64 percent recorded in December's parliamentary elections and in the last presidential election in 2004.
Attention will now turn to how Medvedev plans to govern when he takes over from Putin in May. Putin, by far Russia's most powerful politician, has said he intends to keep influence by serving under Medvedev as prime minister, an unusual reversal of roles. Despite assurances by both men that they enjoy a good working relationship, some analysts have voiced concern about how a two-headed government might operate in practice.