MOSCOW a longtime regional leader who has faced large protests and criticism from human rights activists was voted into a new five-year term on Tuesday after being nominated by President Vladimir Putin, Russian media reported.

Legislators in the Volga River region of Bashkortostan, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Moscow, unanimously confirmed incumbent regional President Murtaza Rakhimov in a 119-0 vote, news agencies and networks reported.

Rakhimov has governed the region with an iron hand since 1993. Opposition leaders have accused him of allowing rampant lawlessness, corruption, extrajudicial killings and torture in the mostly Muslim region of 4 million people.

His image was further tarnished in December 2004, when police arbitrarily detained and brutally beat hundreds of people in the city of Blagoveshchensk. Rights activists across Russia criticized Rakhimov's administration for covering it up and refusing to punish the perpetrators.

Several thousand people rallied in the capital, Ufa, in March 2005, demanding that Rakhimov step down. Demonstrators accused him of authoritarian rule and said he had failed to tackle corruption and improve living standards.

Rakhimov was re-elected in a 2003 vote opposition activists said was marred with rampant fraud. Legislation introduced by Putin and adopted last year scrapped direct elections of regional leaders in Russia, introducing a system under which they are nominated by the president and approved by regional legislatures.