SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT PUTIN GROWS AS VOTES ARE COUNTED

MOSCOW, March 15, 2004. (RIA Novosti) - In the nine hours of tallying the results of the presidential election, support for the incumbent president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, increased by 4.6 per cent, with the other candidates each losing 1 per cent in political weight.

These figures were cited on Monday by CEC member Vladimir Lysenko when he made a comparative analysis of the preliminary returns for the presidential election as by 9:00 p.m., Moscow time, on March 14 and 6:00 a.m. on Monday.

"At 9:00 p.m. Vladimir Putin had 66.5 per cent of the vote, while by 6:00 a.m. the percentage of those voting for him rose to 71.1 per cent," Lysenko said.

Nikolai Kharitonov in the meantime lost 0.9 per cent of the vote, to 13.8 per cent from 14.7 per cent.

"Glazyev, Khakamada and Malyshkin lost in political weight one per cent each. Mironov lost 0.2 per cent (to 0.7 per cent from 0.9 per cent)," went on Lysenko.

The "against all" candidate also showed a down trend - to 3.5 per cent from 4.1 per cent of the vote. In last December's parliamentary elections 4.7 per cent of the electorate voted against all, recalled the CEC member.