Pro-Putin party wins 44.5% in parliament vote: exit poll

[MOSCOW] The ruling United Russia party won 44.5 per cent in a parliamentary election on Sunday, an exit poll showed, slightly down on the last election but still enough to preserve the dominance of President Vladimir Putin's allies in parliament.

The nationalist LDPR party was in second place with 15.3 per cent, according to the exit poll by state-run pollster VTsIOM. The Communists were in third on 14.9 per cent and the Just Russia party was fourth with 8.1 per cent.

Liberal opposition parties, the only grouping openly critical of Mr Putin, failed to get over the five per cent threshold needed for party representation, the exit poll showed. Some of their candidates could still make it into parliament in constituency races.

In the last election for the Duma, or lower house of parliament, in 2011, United Russia won 49 per cent of the vote. The vote this time around is being seen as a dry run for Mr Putin's expected presidential campaign in 2018.

It is also a test of how well the Kremlin can oversee trouble-free elections. After the 2011 election, allegations of ballot-rigging sparked big protests against Mr Putin in the capital.

Voting got under way at 2000 GMT on Saturday on Russia's Chukotka Peninsula across the Bering Strait from Alaska. By 1800 GMT on Sunday all polling stations in Russia were scheduled to close.

Yevgeny Korsak, a 65-year-old pensioner in the city of Saransk, 600 km south-east of Moscow, said he had voted for United Russia "because it is strong and powerful".

A middle-aged man in the town of Velikiye Luki in western Russia, who declined to give his name, told Reuters: "Of course I voted for United Russia .. We don't need other parties here. At least they (United Russia) have done their stealing."

United Russia, led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin loyalist, has 238 of 450 Duma seats, dominates the more than 80 regional parliaments, and is routinely depicted in a favourable light by state television, where most Russians get their news.

The party is able to draw on the support of the other three parties in parliament, and benefits from its association with 63-year-old Mr Putin, who after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister, enjoys a personal approval rating of about 80 per cent. Mr Putin does not belong to any party.

By contrast, liberal opposition politicians, who currently have just one sympathetic member in the Duma, complain they are starved of air time, vilified by state media, and their campaigns systematically disrupted by pro-Kremlin provocateurs. Pro-Kremlin politicians deny that charge.

REUTERS