Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, it's been announced that Vladimir Putin has won the presidential election with a record support and a record turnout. It was, by all standards, a Soviet election. With all of the restrictions that you could think of and the real result, well, it wasn't very much to choose between.
And all of the opposition was outlawed. There was a five year prison sentence of any activities that sort of disturb the election campaign in any sort of way in the view of the authorities. The only thing that should be added is that the activity by the Navalny organization saying, come at noon on Sunday, you stand in the queue and demonstrate by that that you are an opposition. That seems to have been very long queues in the large Russian cities not to speak about at the Russian embassies abroad.
So Soviet style election, but there are still some people in Russia holding the hope out for a better future some point in the time.