According to preliminary estimates, the ruling United Russia party has won the September 18 parliamentary elections by a landslide margin, receiving 54.23 percent of the vote, which gave it at least two thirds of the seats and a constitutional majority in the State Duma.
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Pro-Putin party United Russia won a majority in the country’s parliamentary election.
As pollsters predicted, turnout was low at around 47 percent. Other parties failed to overcome both the 5 percent threshold required to secure parliamentary representation and the 3 percent threshold necessary for getting state sponsorship until the next parliamentary polls.
Around 4 million fewer Russians voted for United Russia compared to 2011, data from the Central Election Commission showed, while overall turnout fell to 48%from 60%, exposing growing apathy about a political system and elite which critics say tolerates no genuine opposition. Last week would-be voters took to social media in droves to declare that the upcoming vote was “Elections without choice”. United Russia has also won the vast majority of single-seat constituencies; its representatives were in the lead in 203 of 225 constituencies.
Mr Putin said it was a “good result” and people voted for his party even though “things are tough” with the economy.
Analysts have seen the voting as a likely referendum on Putin’s expected 2018 run for re-election.
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 nationalist LDPR and the Communist party are way behind United Russia, with about 14-16% each.
Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence. The previous record was set by United Russia itself in 2007, when it won 315 seats.
United Russia is allegedly on track to claim 343 seats of the 450 available in parliament.
Russian people support political stability, Putin said as he visited the campaign office.
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The 63-year-old Putin, after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, still enjoys a high personal approval rating of about 80 percent. 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.
