That would give United Russia the two-thirds major.
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Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink in 2016 by at least 0.3%, Putin said: “We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems”.
Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the election monitoring group Golos, attributed the weak showing on Sunday to voter apathy aided by nearly invisible campaigning by the ruling party and the opposition alike.
Putin’s aides are likely to use the result as a springboard for his own re-election campaign in 2018, though he has not yet confirmed whether he will seek another term.
On Sunday, Russians elected the officials to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, as well as to dozens of municipal and regional bodies on the first nationwide Single Election Day – previously voting was held in December.
It showed United Russia receiving 44.5 percent of the vote for the State Duma seats chosen by part-list.
This time, half of the parliament’s seats will be occupied by deputies included in the federal candidate lists of parties that will clear the 5 percent threshold. The other 225 were contested in specific districts. As for now, 93% of the votes counted, the main rivals of UR were too weak – The Communist Party and nationalist LDPR both secured just over 13%.
The elections were “completely legitimate”, with far fewer reports of voting irregularities than in previous elections, Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s central election commission, said, according to RIA Novosti.
Videos posted on YouTube appeared to show poll workers in several regions in southern Russian Federation dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.
The ruling United Russia party looks like it will remain the dominant force in the countrys politics with exit polls in Russias parliamentary election showing that it could claim up to 49.4% of the vote. During his KGB career he was a communist until 1991, then a member of NDR in 1995, in 2008 Putin becomes a head (not a member!) of the party United Russia.
Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.
However, the party’s victory has been marred after a video was posted on Twitter which appears to show women stuffing ballot boxes with voting slips. That would allow the party, which was founded by Putin and benefits from his popularity, to extend its dominance in the lower house of parliament, or Duma.
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Elections to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, were held on September 18 in a split system: 225 members of parliament were elected by party tickets, while the other 225 – in one-seat constituencies. It will be the first parliamentary vote since 2011, when allegations of ballot-rigging sparked big protests against Putin in the capital.
