President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party was on track to win a strong majority in a parliamentary vote, results showed Monday, after an election that followed an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition.
With 50 percent of votes counted, United Russia was ahead with 46.11 percent of the vote, followed by the Communist Party with 21.40 percent.
Russia's three-day parliamentary and local elections come in the wake of an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition Photo: AFP / Alexander NEMENOV
The vote came in the wake of a clampdown that saw Putin's best-known domestic foe Alexei Navalny jailed -- after he returned to Russia following a poisoning he blames on the Kremlin -- and his organisations banned as "extremist".
In the lead-up to the election, all of Navalny's top allies were arrested or fled the country, with anyone associated with his groups kept from running.
Navalny's team had called for opposition supporters to back other candidates who could potentially defeat United Russia, most of them from the Communists, and results indicated the "Smart Voting" campaign may have had some success.
Composition of the Russian legislative assembly, the Duma, before elections on September 17 and 19 Photo: AFP / Kenan AUGEARD
United Russia's share of the vote was down from 54.2 percent in the last parliamentary election in 2016, while the Communists saw their support grow from 13.3 percent.
Recent surveys showed fewer than 30 percent planned to vote for the ruling United Russia Party Photo: AFP / Alexander NEMENOV
Voting by party list accounts for only half of the lower house State Duma's 450 seats, however, and United Russia was dominating in the other half of seats assigned according to single-mandate races.
With 50 percent of those votes counted, United Russia candidates were ahead in at least 193 of the 225 seats.
IMAGES Russians are at the polls to elect seats in the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament. The election, which runs until Sunday, comes after a sweeping crackdown this year on President Vladimir Putin's opponents. Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's "Smart Voting" bot has disappeared from the Telegram messenger app following similar moves by Apple and Google on Friday at the start of the three-day parliamentary vote. Photo: AFPTV / Alexander ZHDANOV
United Russia held 334 Duma seats going into the election and if the trends continued it appeared likely to at least hold on to a two-thirds majority.
Three other parties appeared to have met the five percent threshold needed to enter parliament -- the nationalist LDPR, the recently formed "New People" party, and "A Just Russia", all with less than 10 percent.
The ruling United Russia party is widely expected to retain its two-thirds majority in the lower house Photo: AFP / Natalia KOLESNIKOVA
United Russia's general council secretary Andrei Turchak congratulated supporters at party headquarters on a "clean and honest victory".
But Navalny's allies said the vote was being falsified on a massive scale, pointing especially to repeated delays in releasing the results of electronic voting in liberal and opposition-friendly Moscow.
"We have rattled their political system. We forced them to either admit defeat or to falsify, in front of everyone, absolutely brazenly, without any shame. To admit moral bankruptcy," key Navalny aide Leonid Volkov said during a live stream on YouTube.
Elections chief said her commission had received 137 reports of voting 'coercion' Photo: AFP / Pavel KOROLYOV
Authorities had taken drastic measures to deter the "Smart Voting" campaign, which provided lists of candidates with the best hope of denying Kremlin-aligned politicians a seat.
The campaign's website was shut down and on Friday Apple and Google removed the Smart Voting app from their stores, causing an uproar among the opposition who accused them of giving in to Kremlin "blackmail".
Sources familiar with Google and Apple's decision told AFP the move was taken under pressure from Russian authorities, including threats to arrest the tech giants' local staff.
The popular Telegram messenger also removed Navalny's Smart Voting bot, and on Sunday Google Docs and YouTube videos containing the lists of recommended candidates were blocked.
Turnout was at 45 percent according to the latest figures released by the election commission on Sunday.
Critics had argued that online voting, new limits on election observers and the polls being spread over three days -- a move officials said was to reduce coronavirus risks -- all presented opportunities for fraud.
As of Sunday evening, independent election monitor Golos -- which authorities branded a "foreign agent" ahead of the polls -- had tracked over 4,900 reports of voting violations.
While 68-year-old Putin remains popular, United Russia has seen its support drop as living standards decline following years of economic stagnation.
He cast his ballot in the "sham" elections, he said, to "at least show some kind of protest against the current government".
But Anna Kartashova, a 50-year-old pharmaceutical company manager in Moscow, said she voted for United Russia because she "simply trusts" Putin.
"We just don't see anyone else we can trust in the current political landscape," she said.
