Tue 21 September 2021:
In weekend Duma elections, Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, appeared to have maintained its majority, strengthening its control of parliament and increasing President Vladimir Putin’s power base.
In a statement, Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Electoral Commission, said that the voter turnout was 51.68%.
As 99.69% percent of votes have been counted until now, Pamfilova said, out of the 14 political parties, five of them passed the threshold to make it to the State Duma, the lower house of the parliament.
Pamfilova described the election result as “an expansion of the political diversity,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
The United Russia secured 49.85%, the Communist Party of Russia 18.96%, the Liberal-Democratic Party 7.5%, and Fair Russia 7.44% as well as the New People 5.33% to pass the election threshold.
The party appears to have seen its share of the vote decline — at the last Duma election in 2016, United Russia won 54.2% of the vote. It comes as more Russians bemoan living standards in the country and amid a crackdown on Kremlin critics, such as activist Alexei Navalny, who remains in prison. Groups affiliated with him are branded extremist organizations and his supporters barred from running for office.
Independent Russian vote monitor Golos, which itself had been designated a “foreign agent” by the state ahead of the election, said it had received multiple reports of electoral violations.
Over the three days of voting, Golos said Sunday night: “There was an obvious decline in the level of publicity, openness and transparency of the electoral system.”
According to the news agency, the Central Election Commission head said the final results will be announced on Friday.
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