According to the incomplete official vote count, the right-wing populist LDPR party was in second place with 17.2 percent, while the Communists came in third on 14.9 percent.
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Near-complete results from Russia’s national parliament election show the Kremlin’s power-base party United Russia taking an overwhelming majority of the seats.
Sunday’s election follows a tumultuous few years that have seen Russian Federation seize the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine, sparking its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War, and the start of a military campaign in Syria.
The result signals an improvement for United Russia, which won 49% of the vote during the 2011 election.
In the system of “Managed Democracy” crafted by the Kremlin, it was unthinkable that President Putin’s control of parliament would weaken. Some ballot box stuffing was even caught on camera. The authorities reacted with new laws to suppress the opposition movement and jailed activists. “Not only is this a constitutional majority (300 seats are required to amend the Constitution and key laws), this is also the largest majority ever in Russia’s post-Soviet history”, VTB Capital commented on September 19.
“We are not a Russian island – we are United Russia”, reads a party political ad on a Kaliningrad tram. The Russian people “want that stability in society”, he said.
Tass says preliminary results from the Central Election Commission suggests the party will win 343 seats of the 450 on offer. Election officials said Monday that turnout was almost 48 percent, substantially lower than the 60 percent turnout at the last parliamentary election. In 2011, 60 percent of the electorate voted.
“Of course, a higher turnout would be welcomed, but there is no need to downplay the importance of the numbers [on turnout], we are having at the moment”.
Liberal opposition parties failed to get enough votes for party-list representation.
It is doubtful that this new evidence will actually lead to a re-vote or an extensive investigation by Russian officials.
Serious irregularities were reported in one Siberian region, with suggestions of “carousel” voting – people bussed around polling stations – in the city of Barnaul.
Statistical evidence proves that nearly half of the recorded votes for United Russia – the current ruling political party – in the country’s recent election were actually fraudulent.
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“In domestic policy, we will certainly have to listen and hear all the political forces, including those that did not pass into parliament”, Putin said at a meeting with the government which was broadcasted by local TV.
