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Parties spent nearly 2 billion rubles on State Duma election campaign

International election observers monitored the State Duma election in 48 regions

MOSCOW, December 9 (Itar-Tass) —— Seven political parties, which took part in the State Duma election, spent about 1.8 billion rubles on the election campaign, excluding expenditures of their regional organizations, Central Elections Commission Deputy Chairman Leonid Ivlev said on Friday.

In his words, the election fund of each party, excluding regional organizations, was limited to 700 million rubles. “United Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party almost reached the upper limit, with 562 million rubles and 520 million rubles spent correspondingly,” Ivlev said.

A Just Russia spent 319 million rubles, the Communist Party 218 million rubles, Yabloko 168 million rubles, Right Cause about 7 million rubles and Patriots of Russia about 4.5 million rubles.

Regional organizations of the parties spent about 1.8 billion rubles on the election campaign, he added.

International election observers monitored the State Duma election in 48 regions, Central Elections Commission Deputy Chairman Leonid Ivlev said on Friday.

“The regions are populated with about 80% of the total Russian electorate,” he said.

In all, 688 election observers from 54 states and many international organizations, among them the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Nordic Council, monitored the ballot in Russia, he said.

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