Russian President Vladimir Putin says that the ruling United Russia party, which early results show is winning in the parliamentary election, has produced a good result.
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The ruling United Russia party, founded by Putin nearly 16 years ago after he first became president, was on track to win 343 seats or 76 percent of 450 available seats in Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, the Central Election Commission said, after 93 percent of ballots had been counted.
The Communist party was a distant second with 13.45 percent of the vote, while the right-wing nationalistic Liberal Democratic Party won by 13.24 percent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin casts his vote on Sunday’s parliamentary election.
Elected MPs will hold their seats for the next five years, with 266 seats needed by one party to win a majority.
Less than 7 percent of the ballots were counted by 9 p.m. (1800 GMT, 2 p.m. EDT), showing United Russia getting about 44 percent of the vote, with the Liberal Democrat Party trailing with 18 percent of the vote.
MOSCOW (AP) – President Vladimir Putin sees the governing party’s huge gain in parliamentary elections as a vote of confidence in his government, despite a low voter turnout which suggests broad public apathy and dismay with the political process.
Election officials said on Monday that turnout was almost 48 percent, substantially lower than the 60 percent turnout at the last parliamentary election. “Opposition parties attracted minimal support”.
After the last election in 2011, anger at ballot-rigging prompted large protests in Moscow, and the Kremlin will be anxious to avoid a repetition of such unrest.
Russia’s elections commission head says results from voting for parliament in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there are confirmed.
Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they weren’t registered, and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths.
The results from several ballot stations may be thrown out, CEC leader Ella Pamfilova said Monday, after surveillance video showed voting irregularities – including at least one case in which an election worker is seen taking a small stack of ballots and jamming them into the box.
The vote comes as Putin’s approval ratings remain high at around 80 per cent and authorities appear to be banking on trouble-free presidential elections in two years.
Among voting irregularities witnessed by Reuters were several people voting twice in one polling station in the Mordovia region of central Russian Federation. Independent candidates were also allowed, although only 23 met the requirements to get on the ballot, according to the elections-monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Prospects for the single-district races were unclear.
All three of those parties tend to vote with United Russia on crunch issues in parliament and avoid direct criticism of Putin.
He said supporters believe United Russia politicians “are really working hard even though it does not always work”.
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“The economy needs a boost”, Nikolay Kovalenko, 20, a first-time voter who went with the Kremlin-friendly business oriented Party of Growth, said. Another demonstration took place outside the Russian consulate in Odessa, where four protesters were arrested.
