MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/. Five parties have made it into Russia's State Duma (the lower house of parliament) based on the party-list vote in the September 17-19 parliamentary elections. A total of eight parties will be represented in the lower house, taking single-seat constituencies into account, Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairperson Ella Pamfilova announced on Monday.
The United Russia party has so far secured over 300 seats, maintaining its constitutional majority. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) improved its positions, while the share of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) nearly halved. At the same time, the newly created party New People managed to clear the five percent threshold needed for party representation.
TASS gathered the key statistics of the election.
Voter turnout and voting results
- According to the CEC, voter turnout reached 51.68%, up from 47.88% in 2016.
- Online voter turnout was 93.21% in six regions that held remote online voting on a federal platform, namely the Kursk, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov and Yaroslavl regions, and the city of Sevastopol.
- In Moscow, where voters cast their ballots online on a separate platform, voter turnout stood at 96.5%. All in all, according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, about 50% of the city's voters participated in the vote, half of them casting their ballots online.
- CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov stated at a TASS press conference that the party refused to recognize the results of the online vote in Moscow.
- The Central Election Commission will endorse the outcome of the elections on Friday, September 24, Pamfilova said.
Fifth party in State Duma
- United Russia, the CPRF, the LDPR, the A Just Russia - For Truth party and New People (5.33%) got over the five percent threshold needed to make it into the State Duma, according to the data that the CEC released after processing nearly 100% of the results.
- A new party will enter Russia's parliament for the first time since 2007, when A Just Russia replaced the Rodina (or Motherland) bloc in the fourth State Duma.
- More than four political forces have made it into the State Duma for the first time since 1999, when the CPRF, United Russia, Otechestvo - Vsya Rossiya (or Fatherland - All Russia), the Union of Right Forces, the Zhirinovsky Bloc and Yabloko sent their MPs.
- United Russia won 49.85% of the vote, a little down from 54.2% in the previous elections.
- The CPRF got 18.96% compared to 13.34% in 2016, while LDPR gained 7.5%, which is much less than five years ago. A Just Russia - For Truth received 7.44%, slightly improving its position after getting 6.22% in the previous elections.
- Among the parties that aren't represented in parliament at the moment, the Party of Pensioners (2.46%), Yabloko (1.33%) and the Communists of Russia (1.27%) performed the best. However, none of them managed to overcome the three percent threshold needed to receive government funding.
Single-mandate constituencies
- Just like in 2016, United Russia won most single-mandate constituencies, 198 out of 225.
- The CPRF secured victories in nine constituencies, A Just Russia - For Truth in eight and the LDPR in two.
- Another three parties - Rodina, the Party of Growth and Civic Platform - and five independent candidates will enter parliament based on voting in single-mandate constituencies.
- Candidates supported by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, who had presented his list on September 15, won all single-mandate constituencies in the Russian capital. Apart from United Russia members, they include A Just Russia - For Truth member Galina Khovanskaya and independent candidates Anatoly Vasserman, Dmitry Pevtsov and Oleg Leonov.
Gubernatorial elections
- Incumbent and acting governors won the vote in the first round in all nine regions that held gubernatorial elections.
- Igor Rudenya gained 52.33% in the Tver region (CPRF candidate Lyudmila Vorobyova came in second with 20.09%), and Mikhail Degtyaryov got 56.81% in the Khabarovsk region (Marina Kim representing the A Just Russia - For Truth party was second with 25.39%).
- Chechnya's incumbent head Ramzan Kadyrov won in a landslide, securing 99.7% of the vote with 100% of the results processed.
- In the Karachay-Circassian and North Ossetia regions, where regional heads are elected by lawmakers, incumbent head Rashid Temrezov and acting head Sergey Menyailo won the election unanimously.
- Lawmakers in another Russian region, Dagestan, will elect a new regional head on October 14. President Vladimir Putin has nominated acting head Sergey Melikov, member of the regional election committee Samir Abdulkhalikov and deputy chairman of the regional people's assembly Kamil Davdiyev for that position.
Irregularities and attacks
- No major irregularities were recorded during the vote. According to Pamfilova, 25,830 ballots were declared invalid in 35 regions, "a trifling, minute number."
- The results of the vote were canceled at three polling stations in three regions of the country, namely Crimea, Kalmykia, and St. Petersburg. According to the CEC chief, there are grounds to cancel the results at six or seven more polling stations in St. Petersburg.
- As many as 491,188 observers monitored the election this year, Pamfilova said.
- Numerous international observers pointed out that the election process was well-organized and transparent.
- With no serious irregularities to tackle, the CEC faced "unprecedented cyberattacks" on its website and other systems, including the remote electronic voting platform. According to Rostelecom President Mikhail Oseyevsky, a total of 19 attacks of this kind were carried out.