2012 Russian presidential election

Vladimir Putin's inauguration on 7 May 2012.

The 2012 Russian presidential election was a presidential election. It occurred on 4 March 2012 in the Russian Federation. The election was for an extended term of six years.

Incumbent president, Dmitry Medvedev, decided not to run for a second term.

Vladimir Putin, from United Russia, easily won the election. He received 64% of the vote.

Results

Candidate		Votes	%
	Vladimir Putin	45,602,075	63.60%
	Gennady Zyuganov	12,318,353	17.18%
	Mikhail Prokhorov	5,722,508	7.98%
	Vladimir Zhirinovsky	4,458,103	6.22%
	Sergey Mironov	2,763,935	3.85%
Total votes		70,864,974	100%

Aftermath

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe gave an overall positive review of the election, but they did notice some issues. They found that Putin was given more airtime than other candidates. There were also some cases of carousel voting (which is a type of electoral fraud where supporters drive to multiple polling stations and vote multiple times). Ruža Tomašić, a OSCE observer from Croatia, noted that there were no violations at the five polling stations she observed. A few days after the election, 15,000–20,000 people protested in Moscow against the results. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation did not recognize the results.