VR was co-founded by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s largest party was already expected to once again receive the largest number of votes, in part because Putin did everything he could to stymie the opposition in the run-up to the election.
Independent observers from the voter rights organization Golos published a report on Saturday reporting thousands of irregularities across the country. For example, people voted more than once. Russia’s Central Election Commission also said it had received hundreds of complaints about abuse. However, according to the commission, there were no serious violations that could affect the outcome of the elections.
In the previous election in 2016, the party received 54 percent of the vote. However, the pro-Kremlin party has recently lost popularity, in part due to the deteriorating living conditions of many Russians.
Navalny
The Communist Party, the second largest party in the Duma (Russia’s parliament), can count on about 21 percent of the vote with more than half of the votes counted. This makes the party, backed by important opposition leader Alexei Navalny, again the second largest in Russia.
About 100 million Russians have been able to go to the polls since Friday to elect a new 450-member House of Representatives. In addition, regional and local authorities were elected. The last polling stations closed at around 8 pm (Netherlands time) on Sunday evening. The turnout at the beginning of Sunday evening was about 45 percent.
