Russia’s ruling United Russia party has cruised to an easy victory in parliamentary polls that could pave the way for President Vladimir Putin to glide to a fourth term in 2018 elections, with more than 93 per cent of votes counted.
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The result increases United Russia’s majority after it achieved 49% of the vote in the 2011 Duma elections.
The clip claims that it shows proof that the elections have been rigged after the United Russia party turned out on top. Moscow Times reports that with this amount of representation, the party could single-handedly change Russia’s constitution, even if it had opposition from any other parties.
“We will see the new State Duma (parliament), we will see new factions, we will see a new “United Russia” which will undoubtedly work with all of the political parties represented in the State Duma” Sergey Neverov explained.
The Sunday results exceeded earlier predictions for the 15-year-old party at a time of economic difficulties worsened by sanctions by western countries and fiercer political competition to enter parliament lowered from the seven percent threshold to the current five.
Turnout was estimated at 47.99 percent. “Yet again, the president received such an impressive vote of confidence from the people”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. The Civil Power party is at the last place with 0.14% of votes.
“People are casting their votes just like in other European countries, ” he said adding that the voting process is “absolutely transparent” and “Russian democracy has evolved”.
Well behind United Russia were the nationalist LDPR and the Communist party got around 14-16% each.
The elections were “completely legitimate”, with far fewer reports of voting irregularities than in previous elections, Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s central election commission, said, according to RIA Novosti.
Russian state media reported a turnout of around 80 percent in Russian-controlled Crimea, Euronews reported yesterday.
Anger over widespread fraud in the 2011 election sparked large protests in Moscow that unsettled authorities by their size and persistence.
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Election commission members wait at a polling station during a parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. In some cases, webcams installed at polling stations recorded what appear to be election officials stuffing ballot boxes.
