Russian President Vladimir Putin had cast the three-day election to the State Duma – the first since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022 – as a test of support for the conflict.
Elections for some regional parliaments and governors were held at the same time.
With over 95 percent of the vote counted, Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Electoral Commission, said United Russia had scored 57.8 percent, up from the 49.8 percent that it won in the last parliamentary election, in 2021.
United Russia was set to control 355 seats or nearly 80 percent of the 450-seat Duma, a total that includes results in individual constituencies. That would maintain its constitutional majority – enabling it to pass laws and initiate amendments to the constitution without the support of other parties.
It would also be an all-time high, outstripping its 2016 record of 343 seats.
Four other parties had made it into parliament – the Communists with 13.8 percent, the ultra-nationalist LDPR with 9 percent and the New People party with 8 percent. The Just Russia party narrowly made the 5 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.
In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, was re-elected to a fifth term as leader with an official tally of near 100 percent.
Pamfilova said turnout among Russia’s 111 million voters – which she put at 59.3 percent – was a record for such an election, which continued despite a heavy Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow on Sunday, the last day of voting.
She also called the vote “clean” in the face of allegations from opposition activists in exile of widespread rigging.
Yabloko, the only registered anti-war party in Russia, failed to win any seats at a national level. But in Novgorod, about 480 km northwest of Moscow, with nearly 97 percent of votes counted, it appeared to have cleared the 5 percent barrier by one percentage point to enter the regional parliament.
“More than 12,000 Novgorod residents supported Yabloko,” the party, which supports a ceasefire in Ukraine, said in a statement.
“Peace, freedom and a life free from fear are values that have struck a chord in people’s hearts and souls.” (Reuters)
