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A woman casts her vote at the Kazan train station in Moscow on Sunday
Photo: EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / REUTERS
As expected, the ruling United Russia party, which supports President Vladimir Putin, is on the way to winning the three-day parliamentary elections in Russia. The party got 38.57 percent of the vote, the electoral commission announced on Sunday evening in Moscow after counting nine percent of the polling stations. In second place is the Communist Party with 25.1 percent. In the election, the 450 seats in the Duma as well as local and regional representative bodies were decided. Around 108 million people were eligible to vote.
In the past few months, the Russian authorities had taken massive action against the opposition, which is why the victory of United Russia was de facto certain even before the polls.
The three-day election itself was overshadowed by massive allegations of manipulation.
The Golos election observation organization said it had received almost 4,000 reports of election fraud.
An election day poll carried out by Insomar and published by the Russian news agency Ria predicted that "United Russia" would receive just over 45 percent of the vote.
For President Vladimir Putin, the three-day vote on the new State Duma is an important test of sentiment.
"United Russia" is its power base.
In the last general election in 2016, the party received just over 54% of the vote.
Since then, their popularity has plummeted due to discomfort with the fluctuating standard of living for years.
After the last polling stations have closed, the votes are counted in the parliamentary elections.
Until Sunday evening at 8 p.m. CET, voters could still vote in the Baltic Sea region of Kaliningrad (formerly northern East Prussia around Königsberg).
In the far east of the country and Siberia, the polling stations have been closed for hours.
Russia has eleven time zones.
Reliable results were expected for the later evening hours.
“Based on the first results, we see that United Russia does not have a monopoly.
That's good, ”said Ivan Zhdanov, a confidante of the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny.
His team had called for a protest vote against "United Russia" in order to break its monopoly of power in the State Duma and in regional parliaments.
kim / dpa / Reuters / AFP