Russian presidential election, 2008

Russian presidential election, 2008

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Opinion polls
Turnout	69.7% 5.4 pp
Nominee Dmitry Medvedev Gennady Zyuganov Vladimir Zhirinovsky Party United Russia Communist Party LDPR Home state Saint Petersburg Oryol Oblast Almaty (now Kazakhstan) Popular vote 52,530,712 13,243,550 6,988,510 Percentage 71.2% 18.0% 9.5%
Constituencies won by Dmitry Medvedev
President before election Vladimir Putin Independent Elected President Dmitry Medvedev United Russia

Vladimir Putin
Independent

Dmitry Medvedev
United Russia

Presidential elections were held in Russia on 2 March 2008. They resulted in the election of Dmitry Medvedev as the third President of Russia. Medvedev, whose candidacy was supported by incumbent president Vladimir Putin and five political parties (United Russia, Fair Russia, Agrarian Party, Civilian Power, Russian Ecological Party "The Greens"), received 71% of the vote, and defeated candidates from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the Democratic Party of Russia.

The fairness of the election was disputed, with official monitoring groups giving conflicting reports. Some reported that the election was free and fair, while others reported that not all candidates had equal media coverage and that Kremlin opposition was treated unfairly. Monitoring groups found a number of other irregularities. The European election monitoring group PACE characterized the election as "neither free nor fair."

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election monitoring group refused to monitor the election because of what it called "severe restrictions on its observers by the Russian government", a charge Russia vehemently rejected, calling the decision "unacceptable".