The Russian president Vladimir Putin described the passed elections as legitimate. "The legitimacy of the Russian parliament has undoubtedly grown", the president told journalists. “The previous membership of the parliament was supported by 70% of the electorate, the present one rests upon 90%; only 10% of voters have supported parties which haven’t entered the parliament. This is a high degree of the legitimacy of our Duma”, explained Putin.
He thanked Russians for the high turnout and noted that this means that Russians “won’t allow the destructive development which we see in some countries of the CIS”. “This is a good example and good index of the internal stability of Russia”, argued the president.
Putin said that in that way United Russia had increased the number of seats in the parliament up to 315. "For United Russia, it's an absolute success, a victory, and a very good one. United Russia got a constitutional majority in the parliament and has strengthened its position. According to the latest count, I have been told, by 12 seats - it's a steady constitutional majority - 315 seats in the State Duma", cites Vesti.ru.
"It is not just United Russia that has strengthened its position - the Communist Party has too - the number of seats in the parliament for them has increased, the LDPR has also strengthened its position, and of course it's a big success that the Fair Russia party who were taking part in their first election has gone through to the State Duma."
The turnout was over 60%. With 98% of the ballots tallied, United Russia garnered 64,1% and so it got a constitutional majority in the fifth State Duma (315 seats of 450).
It should be marked that many elected representatives of the people won’t enter the Duma. This is the so-called ‘steam-engines’, that is famous figures that are not going to go to the Duma from the very beginning. They are just included in the lists to attract additional votes. As a rule among ‘steam-engines’ of United Russia there are governors, mayors of regional centres, speakers of local legislative assemblies, sometimes-famous sportsmen, artists and astronauts.
The St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko has already refused from her seat in the Duma; she explained that she had entered the party list to express her political position. So did Eduard Rossel, the Sverdlovsk region's governor, and the head of Ekaterinburg Arkady Chernetsky. But the main United Russia’s ‘steam engine’ was, certainly, Vladimir Putin.
Some analysts consider, that elections being postulated by Kremlin as a referendum on confidence personally in Vladimir Putin as the national leader have turned out to be unsuccessful. “63% is not much. Taking into account the 60% turnout, 60% from 60% is not much after so great efforts. Moreover, many people will think that the result has been rigged. That’s why I can hardly say that the result is successful for the authorities”, argued, for example, Yevgeny Yasin the director of the High Economic School.
Besides the United Russia party three more entered the Parliament. The Liberal Democratic party (loyal to Kremlin on the whole) received 8.2%, i.e. 40 seats; and A Just Russia (being a fake oppositional party) received 7.8%, 38 seats. The only party that can be called a oppositional one, KPRF got 11.6%, that is 57 seats. However, as Anatoly Chubais, one of the Union of Right Forces leaders noted, ‘this is a party of the past; it can be easily disputed with’.
The final results will become known in the end of the week, on December 7-8.
Liberal SPS and Yabloko could not get even 3% and that means that they can face financial problems. According to the law a party that hasn’t managed to overcome a 3% barrier must pay for broadcast and publications itself. That party, which has got less than 4% won’t claw back 60 mln rubles of an electoral deposit that must be paid by any party, which hasn’t seats in the Duma. At the same time SPS and KPRF argue, that during the elections there have been multitude violations and garbling and that they will challenge the results in court.
The international observers said the parliamentary elections had failed to meet the organisation's commitments and standards. "It was not a fair election," Gцran Lennmarker, the head of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly said. The merging of state and the political party, which is "an abuse of power and clear violation of international commitments", strong bias of the media in favour of the President and the United Russia party, no conditions for new and small parties to develop and compete effectively, as well as reports of harassment of opposition parties in different ways.
PACE Chairman Luc Van den Brande noted the abuse of the administrative resource. At the same time he made a reservation that they acted not as judges but as democracy partners.
The CEC of Russia accused the European observers of biliousness and executing a political order. The head of the United Russia’s executive committee announced: “It seems that they (the observers - polit.ru) even didn’t visit polling stations and didn’t see the enthusiasm and even inspiration of the voters, including young people”.
