“We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result; it’s won”, Putin said at the United Russia headquarters, where he arrived together with his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, who is prime minister and the party’s leader.
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Russians headed to parliamentary polls on Sunday, with parties loyal to President Vladimir Putin expected to maintain their dominance as the Kremlin sought to make a show of eliminating voter fraud after mass opposition protests.
It is also a test of how well the Kremlin can oversee trouble-free elections.
For instance, former oil tycoon and Putin’s arch rival, Mikhail Khodorkovsky who spent a decade in a Siberian prison, has been allowed to finance 18 candidates as part of his Open Russia initiative.
She said on Sunday evening that she saw no reason to annul the vote but conceded that the election was “not sterile”.
According to election officials, two hours before polling stations closed on Sunday, turnout was at 39.4 percent, marking a huge drop from the 60 percent turnout seen at the last parliamentary election.
Putin has deliberately kept a low profile for himself in these Duma elections unlike in 2011, while the United Russia has hardly used his image in the 2016 campaign.
But Putin’s opponents are weak and divided and, despite being given some TV airtime, they insist that the Kremlin’s near-total dominance means the vote can never be fair.
Voter turnout in Russia’s largest cities appeared to be much lower than five years ago, indicating that the widespread practice of coercing state employees to vote in previous elections wasn’t as prevalent this time around. But the election monitoring group Golos said on its website that the organization and local election commissions had received reports of violations in several regions, including in Moscow. “I tell them 99 percent is not in vogue anymore”, she said, a reference to the hard-to-believe results often posted in Russia’s North Caucasus regions. The main party is United Russia with 238 seats.
Yabloko, the liberal party that placed high hopes on passing the 7% threshold to enter Parliament, is poised to get 3.4% (and thus be able to receive state subsidies per vote), according to the polls.
Electoral Commission chief Ella Pamfilova admitted that there had been problems in certain regions but officials said the number of violations was way down on the last vote.
But on broader questions, she enthusiastically supported Putin, lauding the recent annexation of Crimea and blaming Russia’s economic difficulties on a Western conspiracy. “They all promise a lot but they’re treading a familiar path”, said 70-year-old Alexander, voting in Moscow on Sunday morning for the small Pensioners’ Party for Justice.
The ballot for the 450-seat State Duma was smooth sailing for authorities desperate to avoid a repeat of mass protests last time round and eager to increase their dominance as Russian Federation faces the longest economic crisis of Putin’s rule.
Fourteen political parties took part in State Duma elections.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said the ruling United Russia party won today’s parliamentary election. That has angered the Ukrainian government and there were scuffles between Ukrainian nationalists and police outside the Russian embassy in Kiev on Sunday after a few nationalists tried to stop Russian citizens from voting there.
