Early results from Russia's first parliamentary elections since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine show President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party dominating the vote, a widely predicted outcome. However, Western analysts and critics are casting doubt on the legitimacy of the process, citing the exclusion of anti-war candidates and the tightly controlled nature of the vote.
The elections for the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, began on Friday and ended on Sunday. United Russia leads with 57.86% of the vote, with voter turnout just below 57%. According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), 90.43% of ballots have been counted. TASS reports that over 3.6 million people voted online. The Kremlin had positioned the vote as a chance for residents to have their say amid economic hardship, but the lack of genuine alternatives to United Russia has drawn international skepticism.
Most anti-war candidates were barred from the ballot. Those who did run from the liberal Yabloko party said they feared for their freedom after two senior party figures were handed long jail terms before the election due to comments about the Russia-Ukraine war. Still, Yabloko's leader, Nikolai Rybakov, demonstrably spoiled his ballot paper, writing his party's name and the slogan "For peace."
Other parties, like the Communist Party (CPRF), the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), New People, and A Just Russia, all of which largely vote the same way as United Russia in parliament, trailed behind but were still on course to win seats. The CPRF is at 13.84%, the LDPR at 8.9%, New People at 7.94%, and A Just Russia at 4.95%. The Berlin-based think tank NEST, co-founded by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said the vote could produce awkward moments for the Kremlin. NEST suggested that votes for the CPRF and New People might in many cases amount to a silent protest against Putin and United Russia, even if these parties do not actually challenge the president on most issues.
"The consequences of the war are increasingly being felt within the country, and accumulated anxiety and frustration may translate into votes for the systemic opposition parties that the Kremlin has allowed to remain on the ballot," NEST said in a note. During the 2021 State Duma elections, United Russia kept an absolute majority with 326 seats, while the CPRF won 57 seats.
The vote included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in 2022 – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia – as well as those in Crimea, which was taken in 2014. The United Nations and most of the world do not recognize these territories as part of Russia. Ukraine denounced the election as illegal.
Moscow accused Ukraine of attempting to sabotage the election after a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks targeted Moscow and other regions on Sunday, which TASS called the biggest of its kind since the war began. The attacks killed three people in the Moscow region and two in the Russian-held part of Kherson, including an election official. A facility at Moscow's oil refinery was also damaged. On Monday morning, a man was killed and three others were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Bryansk region, according to acting Governor Yegor Kovalchuk.
Source: www.aljazeera.com