President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party won a record supermajority in the Duma, authorities announced today, after a tightly controlled three-day election without parties critical of the Kremlin or the war in Ukraine.
Electoral chief Ella Pamfilova said preliminary results showed United Russia – which has dominated Russian politics for 25 years – won 355 of the Duma’s 450 seats.
The result handed Putin’s party an increased supermajority and beat its previous record of 343 seats – giving it a free hand for constitutional changes.
The Kremlin said the first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in 2022 showed Russians were united around Putin, who has been in power since New Year’s Eve 1999.
The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions in Ukraine and hit ordinary lives in Russia more than ever this year.
Moscow banned criticism of its military campaign during the election, and the only party that called for an end to the war – Yabloko – was barred from running for the federal Parliament. It was, however, approved in some regions for local voting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing with journalists: “These indicators, of course, point to the highest level of consolidation within Russian society around the head of state”.
Putin had encouraged Russians to vote in support of troops in Ukraine – Moscow also organised voting within occupied Ukraine.
Pamfilova said turnout was more than 59%, thanking Russians for voting despite what she called “psychological pressure on Russia”.
Kyiv hit Moscow with its biggest drone attack of the war yesterday, the last day of voting, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze.
“Despite the extreme situation, we were successful in ensuring the maximum security of these elections,” Pamfilova said.
While nobody in Russia doubted that United Russia would win, the election did bring one unexpected result: in the Novgorod region, in western Russia, Yabloko entered the regional Parliament.
On social media, Yabloko’s Novgorod branch said it received about 12,000 votes – just over 6% of votes in the region – enough to enter the regional legislature.
“Peace, freedom and life without fear – these are the values that have struck a chord in people’s hearts and souls,” it said.
Russia’s Communist Party came second in the vote, winning 40 Duma seats. The nationalist LDPR Party took 25 seats and the New People Party won 20.
The election result is expected to further tighten Putin’s grip on power.
Criticism of Russia’s election process was worldwide.
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas dismissed Russia’s “so-called” election, saying: “The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine, and shut out international election monitors. The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia.”
And, in a joint statement, five countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada condemned Russia’s “sham” parliamentary elections in swathes of occupied Ukraine, branding the move “part of a wider system of occupation”.
Many of Putin’s serious political opponents are in exile, prison or dead.
- AFP