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United Russia to have 238 seats at new State Duma

99.999% of votes have been counted
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

GORKI, December 6 (Itar-Tass) —— United Russia will have 238 seats at the new State Duma; the Communist Party will have 92, the Liberal Democratic Party will have 56 and A Just Russia will have 64, Central Elections Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov said at a Tuesday meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

In his words, 99.999% of votes have been counted.

“A total of 32,448,000 voters or 49.3% voted for United Russia, which gets 238 seats at the State Duma,” Churov said.

“More than 8,700,000 voters supported A Just Russia, which is 13.25% and 64 seats at the State Duma.

“The Liberal Democratic Party gained support of 7,760,000 voters or nearly 12% and 56 seats at the State Duma.

“The Communist Party was supported by 12.5 million voters or 19.2% and 92 seats at the State Duma.

“The Patriots of Russia gained about 1% or more than 600,000 votes.

“Yabloko was supported by 2,025,000 voters or approximately 3.43%. Yabloko thus passes the 3% threshold and receives state funding – over 40 million rubles (proportionately to the votes) and free media space starting from next year.

“The Right Cause gained 400,000 votes or 0.6%,” Churov said.

He noted that 142,000 voters cast their ballots in areas difficult of access. “The number of such voters was 26,000 in the previous election. Besides, the number of citizens who cast their ballots abroad topped 300,000 for the first time ever and neared 310,000,” Churov said.

The turnout stood at 60.2%, which was 3% less than in 2007, but 5% more than in 2003, Churov said. He told the president about the contest he held for the most precise election forecast of Russian sociological companies. “My forecast [of the election turnout] was the most precise. The error was 0.2% only,” Churov said.

“You are practically a wizard, at least the leaders of some parties say so,” Medvedev said. “I am not a wizard, I am just learning,” Churov replied with a smile.

He presented two reports to the president: an election report and a resume from foreign election observers. The clearest report was made by CIS observers, Churov said. “This report does not contain general words but it reports violations at particular polling stations. The OSCE report is less precise although it evaluates the Russian election governance rather high,” he said.

“For some reason, they report an insufficiency of parties and alleged close links between elections commission members and the authorities,“ Churov lamented.

“The sufficiency or insufficiency is an area of the Russian authorities, not of international organizations,” Medvedev said. “It is none of their business how a political system looks, otherwise, they will tell us how to write our constitution. The election is valid, and it has been held in compliance with the Russian election laws.”

He stressed though he did not rule out legislative amendments.

“Our democracy is just emerging. It is not ideal and we amend election laws after every ballot,” Medvedev said.

There are some bold initiatives, such as the reconstruction of the majority electoral system, he said.

Medvedev noted that he would consider those proposals.

It would be wrong to evaluate the election fairness by Internet clips, he said. “There is a new fashion – the posting of short video clips online, in social networks. Such things may be somebody’s order. Relevant agencies must find that out,” he said.

“These video clips cannot be taken as absolutely evidence. They have totally unclear subjects,” Medvedev said admitting that he had seen some of the clips. “It is unclear what they show; we can hear some screams and ambiguous hints but it would be wrong to judge the fairness of this election by these clips. These are nothing but materials for consideration at best or provocations at worst. There were plenty of other provocations made in the summing up of the results and tricks applied, to our regret, by some parties. That is a fact,” Medvedev said.