Less than 7 percent of the ballots counted show United Russia getting about 44 percent of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party trailing behind with 18 percent of the vote.
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Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin comfortably won a parliamentary election, early results showed on Monday, but low turnout suggested a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite 18 months before the next presidential election.
“I’m still voting against the party of crooks and thieves”, he said, a reference to a protest slogan against United Russia from 2011, when viral videos of ballot stuffing brought more than 50,000 Muscovites onto the frigid streets to chant, “Russia without Putin!” Last night it was… For Sunday’s vote, hundreds of worldwide observers were invited and the Kremlin’s former human-rights ombudsman, Ella Pamfilova, was appointed to oversee it.
Russian people support political stability, Vladimir Putin said as he visited the United Russia campaign office. Russian Federation has just concluded an agreement with the United States on ceasefire in Syria, paving the way for new talks on that country’s future.
The nationalist LDPR was said to be in second place with 15.3% of the votes, followed by the Communist party on 14.9% and the Just Russia party on 8.1%.
Electoral Commission chief Ella Pamfilova admitted that there had been problems in certain regions but officials said the number of violations was way down on the last vote.
The respected independent election monitor Golos and the independent Levada Center polling agency have been officially labeled “foreign agents”, seriously hampering their work, some of which pointed to a recent decline in the popularity of United Russia. “We’re here because we think it’s important to vote against United Russia and all the parties in the Duma”.
“We can say with certainty that the party has won”, Putin told campaign workers at the United Russia headquarters, standing alongside United Russia leader and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.
The warning by country’s ex-prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, who heads the opposition Parnas party, which took part in elections for the first time having previously been blocked by the authorities.
Serious irregularities were reported in one Siberian region, with suggestions of “carousel” voting – people bussed around polling stations – in the city of Barnaul.
“They all promise a lot but they’re treading a familiar path”, said 70-year-old Alexander, voting in Moscow on Sunday morning for the small Pensioners’ Party for Justice.
For the first time, Russian Federation is holding elections in Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
But critics insist the Kremlin’s media dominance means the vote can never be fair and – with the 450-member State Duma viewed as a rubber-stamp body that slavishly toes the Kremlin’s line – apathy is widespread.
The Kremlin has tried to assure voters of a clean vote by allowing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the elections and appointed a new head of the country’s election commission.
Alexei Krugly, 63, said he voted for Yabloko because he “feels even more distaste for others”.
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In the Ukrainian capital Kiev, dozens of right-wing protesters gathered around the Russian embassy, where a voting station was set up.
