While Sunday’s vote showed some signs of hope for the Russian opposition to finally break into parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, the exit polls indicated a decisive victory for President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia.
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President Vladimir Putin leveraged his popularity to assert even greater control over Russia’s already malleable Parliament in national elections, with almost complete results released Monday showing the ruling United Russia party gaining an absolute majority of seats.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev arrived at the United Russia party campaign office, where the PM, who is also the chairman of Russia’s ruling party, delivered a speech to party members and thanked Putin, who is the party founder, for demonstrating support for United Russia by visiting the campaign office.
“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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at the United Russia party’s campaign headquarters following a parliamentary election in Moscow, Russia, September 18, 2016.
With 90% of ballot protocols processed, the party wins 54.21% of the vote for the 450-seat Parliament.
The result increases United Russia’s majority, after it achieved 49% of the vote in the 2011 Duma elections.
Cameras monitoring polling stations caught officials at several of these slipping papers into ballot boxes while no member of the public was nearby. Low turnout is believed to have helped the highly organized United Russia.
Parliamentary elections in Russia were not expected to bring the end of ruling party United Russia’s reign. The mission criticized the news reporting on national TV channels, which are owned or controlled by the state, for focusing overwhelmingly on the incumbent authorities and noted “self-censorship encouraged by the restrictive legal and regulatory framework”.
Nevertheless, the elections took part at the peninsula, annexed from Ukraine.
The Communists have lost 50 seats, Liberal Democratic Party have lost 17, and A Just Russia lost 41.
The comment by Central Electoral Commission head Ella Pamfilova was shorter: “The turnout was pretty standard”, she said at a briefing.
“An investigation is underway”, Pamfilova said of that incident. In 2011, the turnout was 60.2 percent, in 2007 – 59 percent.
This report contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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The voting system in Russian Federation is half proportional and half majority.
