Putin strengthened by party win in Russian elections

Despite accusations of electoral fraud by opposition parties, Russian President Vladimir Putin scored a personal victory over the weekend (1-2 December) as more than 63% of voters backed his United Russia party in parliamentary elections.

With 85.1% of votes counted, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced that the ruling United Russia party had received 63.2% of the vote, with just three of the ten other candidate parties garnering sufficient support to overtake the new 7% threshold necessary to be represented in the State Duma. 

While the Kremlin hailed the outcome as a strong victory for President Putin, opposition parties have threatened to challenge the results, citing “violations exceeding all acceptable norms”. 

The Communist Party, which came second in the poll with 11.7% of the vote, accused the elections of being rigged in favour of United Russia’s “direct helpers and sidekicks”, including the Liberal Democratic Party, which gathered 8.4% of the ballot, and the Fair Russia party, which is made up of Kremlin loyalists and won 8% of the vote. 

“This is not a parliament, but a branch of the Kremlin, a department of the government,” said Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, adding that his party was gathering the necessary evidence for a lawsuit to challenge the election results in the Supreme Court. 

Former chess world champion Gary Kasparov, who was jailed for five days last week after his opposition coalition Other Russia organised an unauthorised march in protest against Putin’s clampdown on opposition groups ahead of the elections, said: “The fact is they’re not just rigging the vote. They’re raping the democratic system.” 

Russia’s only independent election observation body Golos agreed that fraud had been systematic. “These are not isolated incidents. The complaints are from every corner of Russia,” said Deputy Head Grigory Melkonyans. 

The election monitoring arm of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the ODIHR, which is the West’s main election observation body, had refused to monitor the poll after a row with Moscow over delays in issuing visas for observers. Germany’s Angela Merkel had criticised the lack of foreign observers authorised to monitor the elections.

While declining to comment on accusations of fraud, United Russia chief Boris Gryzlov said any violations would “in no way put in doubt” the final result. 

The poll could give Vladimir Putin’s party alone as many as 348 out of the 450 seats in the Duma – far more than the 301 needed in order to amend the country’s constitution – a move which, if desired, could secure Putin with a third straight term as president. 

While Putin has repeatedly said he would not attempt to do this, he had also said that a big win in the parliamentary elections would give him a “moral” mandate to continue playing a major role when his second presidential term – the maximum currently allowed by the constitution – comes to an end in May 2008. 

Some observers believe he may seek to retain power as prime minister through the creation of a new post or by pulling the strings behind the scenes as a loyalist takes over. United Russia has so far kept quiet about its candidate for the March presidential elections, but an official nomination is expected at a congress later this month. 

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