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Sunday Morning News

Vladimir Putin is Favored as Russian Voters Cast Their Ballots

Aired March 26, 2000 - 9:00 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin in Russia, where polls remain open for about three more hours. After that, the results of the country's presidential election should emerge.

CNN's Jonathan Mann is in Moscow, where he is keeping close tabs on the historic occasion -- Jonathan.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra.

You know, it's easy to take for granted in the United States, but here in Russia, they've never done anything like it. They have never been able to peacefully and democratically effect a transfer of executive authority. To put it another way, they've never had a chance to vote two new presidents in in a row.

It was Boris Yeltsin who selected Vladimir Putin to be the country's acting president, but now millions of voters are at the polls trying to decide whether Mr. Putin will keep that job with a mandate of his own. Public opinion surveys suggest that Russian voters support Mr. Putin much more than anyone else in the race, by 30 percent over his closest competitor, so his position really doesn't seem much in doubt. It's only a question of when he's going to win the job, not if.

Mr. Putin himself cast his own ballot, the first time he's ever cast a ballot for himself. He's never sought elected office until this day. He did it in a polling station on the southern side of Moscow. He too seemed very confident. He's seen the polls as well. So confident that, in fact, he said he was certain he was going to win, and he wasn't planning to stick around Moscow or do more election business. He said he was heading for the countryside to have a soak and a sauna and go to bed early, even before final results are in.

Well, if the acting president isn't going to be staying up late to see the results, CNN's Steve Harrigan will be. He's at the Central Electoral Commission -- Steve.

STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jonathan, election officials here will not tell us yet how many votes Mr. Putin has or where he stands. That's because, while the voting is over in much of the eastern part of Russia, it's still going on here in Moscow and even further to the west in Kalinengrad (ph). We should know some preliminary votes in about three hours from now. But what they are telling us is the level of the vote, and the level of the vote is good news for Mr. Putin. It's high, high in the far east. And you can look at some of these maps behind me they're putting up on the wall. Basically, the darker areas are where those figures are higher than 50 percent. That's going to be a key figure for Mr. Putin, because not only to win in the first round does he have to get 50 percent of the vote, he has to make sure more than 50 percent of Russians go out to vote.

There was some concern in the Putin camp because the acting president is such a front-runner that perhaps Russians might not bother going to the polls. Now, that is not the case judging from what we see in the far east so far, with regions voting up to 55, even 65 percent of the turnout.

So once again, preliminary results about three hours from now, and in about 12 or 13 hours from now, we should know whether Russia has chosen a new president, or whether we'll see a second round about three weeks from now -- Jonathan.

MANN: And so a country that has been through more than its share of crisis and controversy seems headed toward a broad consensus. The voters are still at the polls, but we'll be knowing those results soon enough.

I'm Jonathan Mann, CNN, reporting live from Moscow.

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