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Russia: Putin party retains majority in parliamentary vote
DW.com • • world
Key Points:
- Russia's ruling United Russia party won the parliamentary election with 57.83% of the vote, securing 355 out of 450 seats, marking its strongest result in history according to the Central Election Commission.
- The election was the first since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and included voting in four illegally annexed Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—as well as Crimea, which Kyiv condemned as illegal.
- Only pro-Kremlin parties supporting President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine were allowed to participate, with opposition parties barred from running amid political crackdowns and social challenges like rising prices and fuel shortages.
- Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin, was re-elected to a fifth term as leader of Chechnya with 99.85% of the vote, despite international criticism of the electoral process and accusations of human rights abuses under his government.
