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President Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev has won Russia's presidential election, according to an exit polls and first official results, but opposition says the elections were rigged. Figures from state-owned pollster VTsIOM said Medvedev had won 69.6 percent of the vote, way ahead of his nearest challenger, veteran Communist Gennady Zyuganov, on 17.2 percent. First official results showed a similar trend, giving Medvedev 64.55 percent with 16 percent of polling stations reporting. The leading opposition challenger in Russia's presidential election said on Sunday he was satisfied with his predicted second place but expressed concern about violations in some regions. "We are extremely concerned about the zone of total falsification," Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov told reporters in reference to reports of huge turnouts in some regions. Although lacking far behind, Zyuganov said he would have won if there had been a fair campaigning period. "If there had been live debates and a proper presentation of the election programmes, I would have won these election. I am absolutely honest, if there would have been debates, they would not have had a chance," he told a news conference. As Putin's handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev enjoyed blanket coverage on Russian TV and refused to participate in any political debates with his opponents. Medvedev's other opponent, 61-year-old nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovksy who heads the Liberal Democratic Party dismissed the elections as meaningless and rigged. "I know that the people are for me, as far as the figures are concerned, the Soviet Union collapsed together with these figures, because all these figures were rigged." President Vladimir Putin's chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev has won Russia's presidential election on Sunday (March 2) by a huge margin, according to an exit polls and first official results," he said. Opinion polls had consistently predicted a huge Medvedev win right from the moment in December last year when Putin picked him as his preferred successor. Many voters credit Putin with Russia's biggest economic boom in a generation and saw Medvedev as the best option to keep their new-found prosperity and guard against a return to the economic crises of the 1990s.