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Russia’s ruling party in the Kremlin has retained its parliamentary status after elections were rife with false allegations against civilians and freedom fighters of former prisoner Alexei Navalny.
United Russia, which was a major vehicle in the opinion of President Vladimir Putin, was close to promoting two-thirds of the top 450 seats and 314 seats, starting at 334 in the 2016 general election, their leader Andrei Turchak said Monday.
The three-day vote, before Putin’s term expires in 2024, was a crucial test for the Kremlin to maintain political control over anger due to a lack of morale, a lack of support for United Russia and a number of repressive measures that it said needed to address foreign intervention.
Putin, who isolates himself after the Covid bombing in the Kremlin last week, praised the Russian people for their “reliance and well-being”.
Navalny’s party – particularly in exile after a court ruling it was a “terrorist group” in June – sought to stir up anger against the government by telling its supporters to vote for one of the Kremlin candidates based on ideas from “smart voting”.
The detailed voting process was disrupted later Apple and Google bowed to the Kremlin’s pressure to prevent the program from appearing when the polls opened on Friday, when the online voting process in Moscow and six other constituencies made it difficult to follow through on what might happen, activists said.
Golos, who oversees independent elections has elected a “foreign trader”, said he counted about 5,000 errors in the polls. But Ella Pamfilova, chairperson of the Electoral Commission, told Putin that “there were fewer irregularities compared to the last, smaller campaign than ever before” and said voting should be abolished at three polling stations across the country.
With 99% of the vote counted, United Russia received 50% of the vote, while the communists – the only Kremlin-controlled parties in Duma, a small house, opposed to Putin’s actions in recent years – almost doubled their 2016 by 19%.
85 constituencies, including 85 Russians, voted for United Russia in a similar election, with the party winning 198 of the remaining 225 seats.
Six other parties closely aligned with the Kremlin will also hold seats in Duma, including New People, a party formed last year in an effort to attract attention among Navalny’s middle class.
Voters were 52%, a gain of 47% in 2016.
Opposition groups called for a boycott of the by-elections in Moscow after a number of candidates in Moscow lost their votes in a referendum, which delayed the ballot.
Navalny said candidates voting for “smart voting” won almost all the seats in Moscow and St Petersburg, the cities most controversial.
“So the robot decided to think of smoke and decided to delay printing [the results] to the point where United Russia’s hands have made a difference to say the opposite, “Navalny wrote in a message from prison sent by his group to Instagram.
Communists say they have refused to accept online results. But city officials hastily refused to give them permission to stage protests, citing the dangers of the coronavirus.
“I know the consequences are unlikely,” Mikhail Lobanov, a Communist ambassador who was slightly lost in western Moscow, wrote on Twitter. “Hundreds of thousands of people voted for us. Yes, it was an opposition vote, but I believe we, who want to say ‘no’, have a responsibility to protect these votes along with our voters. ”
The U.S. Department of State says in a statement that the “liberalization of the election” did not “result in a fair and just trial”, while the UK foreign ministry said it was “a reversal” of Russia’s democracy.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the vote took place “in a climate of critical and independent criticism” and added that “independent and credible sources report serious violations during the polls”.