Medvedev wordt de nieuwe president van Rusland (en)
After winning the expected large majority in Sunday's presidential election in Russia, Dmitry Medvedev has vowed to work in an "effective tandem" with his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, who is now to become prime minister.
With 98 percent of votes counted, Mr Medvedev won 70.1 percent of the vote - a result close to what Mr Putin achieved in 2004 (71.3 percent). Nearly 68 percent of the country's 109 million registered voters came to cast their ballot.
"This is a special day for our country," Mr Medvedev told a crowd in Moscow's Red Square on Sunday night. He described his future political course as a "direct continuation of that path which is being carried out by president Putin."
Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Communist Party of Russia, came second with almost 17 percent of the vote. Vladimir Zhirinovski, who leads the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, secured over 11 percent, while Andrei Bogdanov, the leader of the Democratic Party of Russia, received less than two percent of the vote.
Mr Zyuganov is set to challenge the poll in court, claiming a number of irregularities. "For me, this is not a victory for Medvedev. This is a pre-planned result that they squeezed out by rejecting debate and exerting administrative pressure" he said, according to the Financial Times.
Lilia Shibanova, of Russian non-profit voting-rights watchdog Golos, also criticised the poll. "There has been intimidation, people have been forced to take absentee ballots and vote at their work places," she was cited as saying by the International Herald Tribune.
Mr Medvedev has already confirmed he is set to work in tandem with Mr Putin, but denied speculation that the institutional powers of the president and government would be altered.
It will "become a rather positive factor in the development of our country," he said about the power arrangement.
When asked who will be in charge of the country's foreign policy, Mr Medvedev said: "Foreign policy, according to the constitution of the Russian Federation, is determined by the president."
According to political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky, "This artificial construction of two czars creates a real factor of instability."
"It's also a classic good cop, bad cop structure, with Medvedev playing the ceremonial good cop role for the West and the Russian intelligentsia," he told the International Herald Tribune.
Aleksei Makarkin, of the Centre for Political Technologies, a Moscow think-tank, told the IHT: "If there is a confrontation, it could blow up the regime. But it's not an issue of only the personal relations between the prime minister and the president, but also the problem of rivalries between the teams around them."