Preliminary election results in Russia

Over 95 per cent of protocols have already been counted. As reported by the independent Russian portal Meduza.io, the United Russia party currently holds 57.83 per cent of the vote. According to these still incomplete results, the party will have 355 mandates in the 450-seat State Duma. A constitutional majority requires winning at least 301 seats. This is the historically highest result for this group.

Second place was taken by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) with 13.81 per cent of the vote. The following places were held by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) with 8.98 per cent, New People with 7.96 per cent, and A Just Russia with 4.96 per cent. The Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, assessed that the latter party has “high chances” of crossing the five per cent electoral threshold.

It should be added that all the aforementioned groups, although considered “systemic opposition,” in reality remain loyal to the authorities in the Kremlin.

Gubernatorial elections were held in some regions. In each of them, the incumbent leaders are ahead. The highest result is attributed to Ramzan Kadyrov, who won 99.85 per cent of the vote in the election for the leader of Chechnya, according to data gathered after counting 100 per cent of the protocols.

The opposition Yabloko party was ultimately not allowed to run in the elections. In mid-August, the Russian Supreme Court rejected the appeal of this anti-war party regarding its admission to the elections.

These were the first parliamentary elections in Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is pointed out that the voting took place under undemocratic conditions. The European Commission emphasised that independent observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were not invited to the elections. United Russia’s victory will serve as legitimisation for military actions and the continuation of the war. Currently, most Russian anti-government media have ceased their operations or moved abroad. It is also worth adding that voting for the Duma was conducted in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol) despite the ongoing war.