Overwhelming majority of Russians in Baltic counties vote for Putin
TALLINN/RIGA. March 19 (Interfax) - The majority of Russians, who voted in the Russian presidential election in the Baltic states, supported Vladimir Putin.
"The majority of Russians voted for Vladimir Putin with an overwhelming number of votes, 94% of all voters cast their ballots for him," Russian Ambassador to Estonia Alexander Petrov said.
Pavel Grudinin got 1.8% of votes, while Vladimir Zhirinovsky got 1.5%, he said.
"Ksenia Sobchak garnered 164 votes, or 0.2%, and the rest got 0.5-0.8%," Petrov said.
Over 28,000 Russian citizens participate in the election, he said.
According to preliminary information of the Central Elections Commission, following processing of 99% of protocols of the electoral commissions, 76.65% of voters voted Putin in Latvia.
According to the results of the voting at three polling stations in Riga, 93.61% or 11,878 persons voted for Putin.
Grudinin got 2,87% of votes in Riga, Sobchak 1.06%, Zhirinovsky got 0.98%, Grigory Yavlinsky got 0.43%, Sergei Baburin got 0.43%, Maxim Suraikin got .38% and Boris Titov got 0.25%.
Putin won 96.84% of votes of Russian citizens at a polling station in Liepaja, Latvia. Grudinin got 1.22% of votes, Zhirinovsky got 0.83%, Suraikin got 0.25% and Baburin 0.22%. The remaining candidates did not even score 0.20% of votes.
The voter turnout in Latvia was about 67%.
The majority of Russian citizens who participated in the election in Lithuania also voted for Putin.