March 5, 2012 - 16:21 AMT
Russia’s Putin orders to investigate election violations

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who won presidential elections Sunday, March 4, said on Monday he plans to instruct the Central Election Commission (CEC) to investigate all possible violations during the vote, RIA Novosti reported.

Sunday’s vote brought Putin a landslide victory, giving him 63.71 percent of the vote after 99.5 percent of ballots were counted.

“I have not yet spoken to [CEC chief Vladimir] Churov… I will surely have a conversation with him and will ask him to thoroughly look into all possible violations that you spoke about,” Putin said at a meeting with his election rivals Sergei Mironov, Mikhail Prokhorov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky.