RUSSIAN PRIME minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has suffered a major setback in the country’s parliamentary elections despite indications of fraud, media control and intimidation of opponents.
Early results and exit polls showed that his party was struggling to gain 50 per cent of the vote in elections for the lower house of parliament, the State Duma. Four years ago Mr Putin’s United Russia secured a massive 64.3 per cent support in the Duma elections and took 315 of the 450 seats.
A two-thirds majority in the Duma is required to change specified articles of the constitution and Mr Putin’s party has lost that important political facility. More importantly the result is a sharp reminder that while Mr Putin is very likely to win the presidential election in March he could find it difficult to get the 50 per cent of votes necessary to avoid a run-off against the second most popular candidate. The result will greatly disappoint Mr Putin, while it is predictably being described as a victory by leading United Russia members such as Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the Duma. However, it will be even more disappointing for President Dmitriy Medvedev who has been seen as the standard bearer in this election for the ruling party, whose leadership he is due to assume next year.
Polling closed at 8pm across this vast country of nine time zones amid reports of serious electoral fraud directed at Mr Putin’s party. News websites favourable to the opposition or noted for impartial news reporting were unavailable until after the voting ended, because of cyber attacks from unidentified sources.
While the early results from east of the Urals, where only seven million people live, reflected the fall in United Russia’s support, an exit poll conducted by the VTsIOM polling organisation showed the party on 48.5 per cent, with the Communist Party in second place on 19.8 per cent, the Social Democratic A Just Russia party on 12.8 per cent, and the right-wing Liberal Democrats on 11.24 per cent.
The pollsters questioned more than a quarter of a million people at 1,746 polling stations after they had voted. VTsIOM claimed its margin of error was a mere 2 per cent. Another opinion pollster, the Public Opinion Foundation, predicted even worse results for United Russia giving it 46 per cent of the vote with the Communists benefiting from a protest vote that put them on 21.8 per cent, A Just Russia on 14.1 per cent and the self-styled Liberal Democrats on 13.2 per cent.
Getting less than half the votes in Russia’s list system of proportional representation system does not mean that United Russia will end up with a minority of seats in parliament. United Russia, the Communist Party, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats will gain representation in the new parliament but three other parties will fail to get the 7 per cent needed for representation. Their percentages will be transferred proportionally to the four successful parties, which may mean that United Russia will scrape a parliamentary majority. Consistent support from the extreme-right-wing Liberal Democrats is likely to continue thus giving Mr Putin a slightly more comfortable parliamentary cushion.
The pro-western Yabloko party led by Grigory Yavlinsky, once a major political force, failed to get near the 7 per cent needed for representation.
Full results are expected to be released by the Central Election Commission early today along with an assessment of the election by observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
