Putin officially announced presidential race winner

Russian election commission has officially declared Vladimir Putin the winner of recent presidential polls with 63.60 percent of the vote. The commission announced on Wednesday that Communist Party chief, Gennady Zyuganov, and independent candidate, Mikhail Prokhorov, respectively finished second and third during the Sunday election with 17.18 and 7.98 percent of the ballots. Veteran populist politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, ended fourth with 6.22 percent of the vote, whereas former upper house of parliament speaker, Sergey Mirono, could only get 3.85 percent. The results were very similar to those already announced unofficially. The victory gave Putin a six-year-long term in the Kremlin. He will swear in as president on May 7. Addressing his supporters in Manezhnaya Square in Moscow on Monday, Putin said that he had won in open and fair contest. "I once asked you: Are we going to make it and we made it. We won today supported by the majority, I promise to work hard and fair and we will succeed. So I urge all of you to unite for the sake of our nation and Motherland," he stated. The opposition has raised fraud allegations and called for protests. Putin has promised to have the Central Election Commission investigate all allegations of violation. He served as president for two consecutive terms from 2000 to 2008 and worked as prime minister from 2008 to 2012.