Early results say 63 per cent votes for Putin’s party

President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has won 62.8 per cent of the vote in Russia’s parliamentary election, first official results showed late on Sunday.

President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has won 62.8 per cent of the vote in Russia’s parliamentary election, first official results showed late on Sunday.

Vladimir Churov, head of Russia’s electoral commission, told reporters that more than 12 per cent of the vote had been counted so far. The Communist Party had won 11.5 per cent, the nationalist LDPR party had won 10.6 per cent and Fair Russia had won 7.1 per cent, Churov said.

An exit poll showed Putin’s United Russia party winning 61 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary election, handing Putin a big personal endorsement.

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Russians voted on Sunday in a parliamentary election likely to give President Vladimir Putin’s party a big victory, but opposition figures said there was widespread fraud.

Pollsters said Putin’s United Russia party was expected to win a majority of up to 65 per cent of votes, a show of public support, which Putin hopes to use as a mandate to retain influence after his second presidential term ends next year. Pro-Western parties are unlikely to pass the minimum 7 per cent hurdle needed to enter the next State Duma.

Putin (55) is riding high on an oil-fuelled economic boom and soaring popularity from a no-nonsense approach that has restored national pride with a big military build-up and harsh verbal attacks on the West. He leads the United Russia party’s list of election candidates, but has not said what role he intends to play to keep influence after next year’s presidential election.

“We voted for Putin because we like him,” said pensioners Valentina Antonovna (84) and Zinaida Stepanova (85) in Moscow. “It’s the first time in our lives that we encounter such a President. We love him. And we love his style.”

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Putin said he was in “festive mood” after voting in Moscow and told reporters voters “should only have voted for the party whose programme seems convincing”.

Opposition politicians and independent monitors Golos cried foul even before the polls closed, alleging numerous instances of ballot-stuffing, pressure on voters to pick the main pro-Kremlin party and multiple voting.

The Moscow election commission chairman said foreign observers had not reported any abuses. Voting was proceeding “calmly and according to schedule”, said Vladimir Churov, chairman of Central Electoral Commission.

This followed accusations — denied by the Kremlin — that skewed media coverage, intimidation of opposition parties and the liberal use of Government resources to promote United Russia had made the contest one-sided even before polls opened.

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“These are the dirtiest, most irresponsible elections,” veteran Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said after voting in Moscow. “They have thought up at least 15 ways to entrap and betray voters.”

Former world chess champion and opposition icon Garry Kasparov denounced the election after intentionally spoiling his ballot paper at a snowbound central Moscow polling station.

“They are not just rigging the vote, they are raping the whole electoral system,” Kasparov told reporters. “These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.”

Kasparov, with little popular support in Russia, called on supporters to lay flowers at the Central Electoral Commission to mark what he termed “the funeral of the Russian Constitution”.