The party was in front in early results and exit polls published an hour after polling stations closed in the nationwide election to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
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According to the incomplete official vote count, the populist LDPR party was in second place with 15.1 per cent, the Communists were in third on 14.9 per cent and the left-of-centre Just Russia party was fourth with 6.4 per cent.
Another exit poll by the Public Opinion Foundation also showed that the ruling party is in a leading role with 48.7 percent of votes.
There are over 94,000 polling stations, including those in closed territories – military garrisons, prisons and hospitals, open in Russian Federation on the polling day, and 371 overseas stations in 145 countries.
“We can say with certainty that the party has won”, Putin told United Russia members at the party’s headquarters in Moscow. “It is a good result”. In reaction to that, the Kremlin appointed a new election commission head and changed the electoral system in a bid to make the polls more credible as a way of increasing the government’s legitimacy.
Independent monitoring movement Golos said it had received more than 400 calls with complaints about irregularities and more than 1,000 similar reports had come in via a dedicated website.
In apparent acknowledgement of a significant fall off in voter turn out, Mr Putin said “it is not the biggest we have seen compared to previous election campaigns but it is high”.
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“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”.
