Putin’s ruling party secures sweeping victory in Russian regional elections

MOSCOW:

Russia’s ruling party won a resounding victory in all regional elections it contested last week, official results showed on Monday, in what authorities said was a sign of support for President Vladimir Putin’s government.

Russia has banned, jailed or exiled all major opposition politicians since launching its offensive in Ukraine in 2022, with the election largely becoming a rubber stamp for Putin and his United Russia party.

The leaders of 21 regions went to the polls between September 6 and 8, including Kursk region, where Ukraine still controls dozens of villages after launching a major cross-border offensive last month.

United Russia won 20 of 21 of them, while a pro-Kremlin independent candidate won the other.

“In my view, the first results of the single voting day put a fat end to the efforts of our opponents to destabilize the situation in Russia, to divide our society,” said the head of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matvienko. state media.

United Russia also emerged as the largest party in more than a dozen regional elections held over the same period, including in Moscow, according to a state media count.

In Moscow, the independent political party Yabloko lost all its seats in the city’s regional Duma after authorities prevented them from registering candidates.

United Russia said it had won the “overwhelming majority” of its election campaigns in a statement on its website.

“The party has confirmed its status as a leading political force, the party of the majority and the party of the President,” it said.

The Russian voting rights group Golos, whose co-chairman is in prison, said the election saw a dramatic reduction in competition, while some people were forced to vote.

“Indications that voters were coerced to vote were reported both on election days and in the run-up to the election,” it said in a statement.

“Massive electoral fraud is a long-standing problem that the current electoral commission system is not even trying to solve,” he said.