Russian President Vladimir Putin greets Dmitry Medvedev, prime minister and chairman of the United Russia party, at the party’s campaign headquarters after its parliamentary election, Moscow, September 18.
Advertisement
United Russia Party wins Duma electionNone of the smaller opposition parties against the ruling party, United Russia, got through the 5 percent barrier in the country’s parliamentary election.
United Russia’s gains came at the expense of three other parties that had largely complied with the Kremlin’s wishes.
Russian citizens who voted in Estonia generally supported United Russia as well. For this occasion, the system existing until 2007 was retaken, which establishes the election of 225 deputies of the State Duma (lower house) by means of the proportional party system and another 225 by single-mandate lists.
Putin and United Russia were riding a wave of nationalist support over Crimea and ongoing military actions, with state-run media ignoring critics or branding them as traitors. “First of all it tells us that people see that the representatives of the United Russia, the leading political force, are really doing their best for the people”, Putin said.
Election officials said that as of 6pm Moscow time (11pm Singapore time), two hours before polling stations in the capital closed on Sunday, the turnout was 39.4 per cent, substantially lower then the 60 per cent turnout at the last parliamentary election.
Opposition parties also had trouble online: This past spring, the Democratic Coalition, an umbrella group that included PARNAS, saw its website hacked and personal data of thousands of opposition voters was revealed online, as The Moscow Times reported.
Reuters reporters at one polling station in the Mordovia region of central Russian Federation witnessed several people casting their ballot, then coming back later and voting again.
The Communists and the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party won 13.36 percent and 13.18 percent respectively, while A Just Russia received 6.2 percent.
Advertisement
“We will be watching the entirety of the voting process in our huge country”, added Pamfilova, a former human rights advocate and cabinet minister under President Boris Yeltsin who has pledged to prevent electoral fraud. A compilation video posted by RFE/RL shows what appear to be elections officials stuffing ballot boxes in Rostov-on-Don, Makhachkala, and in Nizhny Novgorod, where elections officials reportedly suspended voting at one polling place shown in the video. “Nevertheless, we have this result”. Head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova told reporters Monday that she did not expect any significant changes in the results. A campaign of repression between the previous election in 2011 and now has ushered in a mood of political apathy.
