Putin’s United Russia party set for a massive win at the parliamentary elections… but critics claim vote was rigged
The victory comes despite massive economic problems in the nation
Russian hardman Vladimir Putin has won a massive victory in Russia - but critics say the vote was rigged.
His political allies won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election in Russia, so Putin can run for a fourth term as president in 18 months.
The ruling United Russia party, founded by Putin almost 16 years ago after he first became president, was on track to win 343 seats or 76 per cent of 450 available seats in Russia's Duma, the lower house of parliament after 93 per cent of ballots had been counted.
That is up from 238 seats in the last parliamentary election in 2011, and would allow United Russia to change the constitution, although Putin can run again under the existing one as he was prime minister between his second and third terms.
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But there have been a number of reports of voting fraud - and a video has surfaced that critics claim show ballot box stuffing.
An official appears to shove a pile of ballots into the voting box while others stand guard in the alarming footage.
Reuters reporters at one polling station in the Mordovia region of central Russia witnessed several people casting their ballot, then coming back later and voting again.
Election chiefs said were was so far no evidence of large-scale cheating.
After the last election, in 2011, anger at ballot-rigging prompted large protests in Moscow, and the Kremlin will be anxious to avoid a repetition of that.
Monitoring company Golos said they had received floods of reports of vote-rigging but admits its hands are tied.
“We don’t have any way to fight it through law enforcement agencies or through courts but we fight violation through attracting public attention.” Roman Udot, co-chair of Golos told the BBC.
Liberal opposition parties failed to win any seats, after holding just one before.
Not everything went Putin's way though. Near complete results showed turnout was around 48 percent, down from nearly 60 percent in 2011, suggesting apathy among some Russians and a softening of enthusiasm for the ruling elite.
Putin, speaking to United Russia campaign staff a few minutes after polling stations closed on Sunday night, said the win showed voters still trusted the leadership despite an economic slowdown made worse by low oil prices and Western sanctions over Russian military intervention in Ukraine.
"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.
Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink this year by at least 0.3 percent,
Putin said: "We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems. Nevertheless, we have this result."
Putin's aides are likely to use the result as a springboard for his own re-election campaign, though he has not yet confirmed he will seek another term.
Other parties trailed far behind United Russia.
According to the near complete official vote count, the Communists were on track to come second with 42 seats, the populist LDPR party third with 41, and the left-of-centre Just Russia party fourth with 21 seats.
All three of those parties tend to vote with United Russia on crunch issues in parliament and avoid direct criticism of Putin.
Sergei Neverov, secretary of United Russia's General Council, hailed the result on Monday as an endorsement of Putin and his policies.
"We are grateful to our people ... for supporting United Russia, a party founded by Vladimir Putin, for backing a course that is being implemented today by our president," Neverov told a news conference.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told reporters the "overwhelming majority" of voters had come out for Putin, handing him what he called "an impressive vote of confidence."
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