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Dmitry Medvedev won Russia’s presidential election with 70 percent of the vote, according to final preliminary returns released March 4.

nal preliminary returns released on March 4.

Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov announced the results after all precincts had been counted. Final official results will be released later this week.

Communist Party Chief Gennady Zyuganov trailed with nearly 18 percent, while ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky followed with more than 9 percent and little­known candidate Andrei Bogdanov captured more than 1 percent, Churov said. Turnout in the March 2 election was about 70 percent.

Medvedev’s landslide victory was virtually assured by a blessing from Vladimir Putin, the popular incumbent who said he would retain clout by becoming Medvedev’s prime minister.

In a symbolic show of trust more than two months before Medvedev’s inauguration on May 7, Putin put him in charge of presidential State Council meetings.

The move was apparently intended to underline that they will rule together and boost Medvedev’s authority in the eyes of officials at the body’s meetings — and the ordinary Russians who see them on television news programs.

While Medvedev is widely expected to heed Putin’s guidance, the vast powers of the Russian presidency may tempt him to step out of his mentor’s shadow.

“The president and the commander in chief, who controls ... all branches of government, is predetermined to be an independent politician,” commentator Leonid Radzikhovsky wrote in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Vladimir Milov, a former deputy minister who heads the Institute for Energy Policy, also predicted that Medvedev wouldn’t concede and take a secondary role.

“Those who expect Medvedev to be Putin’s puppet are mistaken,” Milov wrote in a commentary.

“He’s extremely ambitious and would be unable to resist a temptation to convert a huge nominal power into a real one.”

Putin captured about 53 percent of the vote in 2000 and won a second four­year term in 2004 with more than 71 percent, just above Medvedev’s result. But the turnout in those elections — 60 and 64 percent, respectively — was significantly lower than the hefty 70 percent on March 2.

While Putin won about 49.5 million votes in the 2004 election, Medvedev was backed by more than 52 million voters, according to the Central Election Commission.

There has been no sign of friction between the two leaders, and Medvedev reaffirmed on March 3 he will pursue Putin’s policy.

“The election’s outcome is the result of the assessment by citizens of the course which has been so efficiently implemented over the past years,” he said during a meeting with Putin on March 3.

The election was tainted by lopsided state media coverage favoring Medvedev and accounts of pressure on voters.

Across Russia, voters said they were pushed, cajoled and pressured to cast ballots as part of a Kremlin campaign to ensure a strong victory for Putin’s protege.

Churov shrugged off criticism, saying on March 4 that Russia’s elections were “the most transparent and open” in the world.

But former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev criticized Russia’s election system and called for reforms in an article published in the official daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

“Our election system needs not simply a change, but a thorough revision,” Gorbachev said.