March 26, 2000

2000 Russian presidential election

Vladimir Putin wins Russia’s presidential election

52.94% — close enough to the threshold that the campaign's central question had been whether Putin would be forced into a second round at all.

One round, and no runoff

Russians voted in an early presidential election on 26 March 2000, across all 89 federal subjects — including 12 of Chechnya's 15 districts — and at polling stations abroad.

Acting President Vladimir Putin took a first-round majority with 39,740,434 votes, 52.94%. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov received 21,928,471 votes, 29.21%, and Yabloko's Grigory Yavlinsky 4,351,452, 5.80%.

Turnout was 68.74% — more than 75 million people, at over 94,000 polling stations.

Why the election came early

Boris Yeltsin resigned on 31 December 1999. Under the constitution, Prime Minister Putin assumed presidential duties, and an early election was scheduled for 26 March.

Putin ran as a self-nominated candidate backed by pro-Kremlin forces.

Eleven names were on the ballot, not twelve: twelve candidates were registered, but Yevgeny Savostyanov withdrew shortly before the deadline.

What the observers wrote down

International observers generally rated the polling orderly while documenting family voting, proxy voting, counting shortcuts, incumbency advantages and an imbalanced media environment.

OSCE teams encountered family voting at 82% and proxy voting at 34% of the stations they visited. The organization found that the irregularities it observed did not appear to change the outcome, while identifying serious concerns about administrative resources, media pressure and voting secrecy; it deployed no observers inside Chechnya.

“Elected on 26 March” is conventional shorthand. The Central Election Commission formally declared Putin elected on 5 April, and he took office on 7 May.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

March 26 is unquestionably the voting date and the date associated with Putin’s electoral victory. Strictly, the Central Election Commission did not legally certify him as elected until April 5.