MOSCOW, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Russia's incumbent President Vladimir Putin leads with 87.9 percent of the votes in the presidential election after 26.17 percent of the ballots counted by late Sunday, according to preliminary data from the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC).
Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov got 3.86 percent of the votes after more than a quarter of ballots counted, while head of the Liberal Democratic Party Leonid Slutsky and the New People Party candidate Vladislav Davankov took 2.97 percent and 3.76 percent of the votes respectively, the data showed.
The voter turnout stood at 74.22 percent, according to the CEC. ■