VIGILANCE BUREAU NABS ASI FOR TAKING RS 10,000 BRIBE
Moscow, September 19
The ruling United Russia party is on track to win 343 of 450 seats in Russia’s Lower House of Parliament, the Central Election Commission said on Monday.
The Commission made it prediction with more than 93 per cent of ballots counted, Ella Pamfilova, the head of the commission, told a news briefing.
The continued dominance of the Lower House by the United Russia, the party Putin founded and which is now run by his allies, is important for the President, who is widely expected to seek a new term in office in 2018.
In the 2011 election for the Lower House, or State Duma, the United Russia won 49 per cent of the vote.
However, nationwide turnout in Sunday’s polls was a modest 47 per cent, which analysts attribute largely to apathy among the many Russians disenchanted by the hardships of an economic slowdown made worse by Western sanctions over Ukraine.
The United Russia benefits from its association with 63-year-old Putin, who after 17 years in power as either President or Prime Minister, enjoys a personal approval rating of about 80 percent, opinion polls show.
Most voters do not see any viable alternative to Putin and his allies, and they fear a return to the chaos and instability of the 1990s, the period immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, if his rule ends.
The Communist party was in second place with 13.5 percent of the vote, outstripping the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democrats on 13.3 percent. The Just Russia party won 6.2 percent, according to the incomplete vote count.
