Putin's Election 'Win' Sparks Mockery

Reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin had secured another term in office was met with mockery on social media, with users decrying the results as a sham due to the leader's suppression of opposition and manipulation of elections.

On Sunday, Reuters reported that Putin was projected to win another six-year term as president, with an alleged 88 percent of the vote. The incumbent leader faced meager opposition on the ballot from Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, Leonid Slutsky of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Voting ran for three days from Friday to Sunday.

As was pointed out by observers and Putin critics online, the candidates on the ballot were supportive of the incumbent president and largely had the same views as him. More meaningful opposition was quashed, with anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin and former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova being barred from running in the race. Alexei Navalny, a major Putin critic and opposition leader in Russia, was also jailed on dubious charges and died in prison last month, with many observers alleging that he was murdered at the behest of Putin.

Putin has served as either the president or prime minister or Russia continuously since 2000, at one point pushing for reforms that lifted term limits and allowed him to continue running for office. He has also enacted strict laws against publicly criticizing him and been accused of manipulating elections to create the superficial appearance of a democratic system.

For these reasons and others, his "victory" in this year's election was met with withering criticism and mockery by users on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

"When you give people a choice between Putin and three guys who voted for all his laws and say he is great, and make criticizing him illegal, you get... this," Max Seddon, Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, wrote in a post alongside a graphic showing Putin's performance against the other candidates.

"My man Putin has won the elections. Technically this is what happened," X user Eve Maina wrote, alongside a meme featuring an altered image of former President Barack Obama giving a medal to himself, used to denote people bestowing honors on themselves.

In another post, security studies professor Peter R. Neumann lampooned the results of the election with pie graph showing the categories "Voted for Putin," "Voted for Putin twice," and "Fell out of window," echoing the widely believed accusations that Putin orders the assassinations of his political opponents.

"Congratulations to #Putin for another election victory," the satirical account Sandford Police wrote in its post. "We don't know how you do it."

Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin via email on Sunday evening for comment.