News24 | Putin's party secures record score in Russia election

A man stands next to a banner with a photograph and a quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sevastopol, Crimea, on 18 September. The quote reads: "Today, our entire country is one team. And that is undoubtedly the reason for the success of all our endeavours".

Reuters/Alexey Pavlishak

• United Russia wins a record 355 of 450 Duma seats after a tightly controlled election barring Kremlin critics.
• Forty-nine Ukraine war veterans are set to enter parliament representing United Russia as Moscow glorifies its troops.
• Western leaders dismiss the election as a sham after dissent is silenced and opposition parties are barred.

Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a record supermajority in the Duma, authorities announced on Monday, following a tightly controlled three-day election in which parties critical of the Kremlin or the war in Ukraine were barred.

Electoral chief Ella Pamfilova said preliminary results showed United Russia, which has dominated Russian politics for 25 years, won 355 of the Duma’s 450 seats.

The result handed Putin’s party an expanded supermajority and surpassed its previous record of 343 seats, giving it a free hand to pursue constitutional changes.

The Kremlin said the first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in 2022 showed Russians were united around Putin, who has been in power since New Year’s Eve 1999.

The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions in Ukraine and hit ordinary lives in Russia more than ever this year.

Moscow has banned criticism of its military campaign, and the only party that called for an end to the war - Yabloko - was barred from running for the federal parliament. It was, however, approved in some regions for local voting.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a briefing with journalists:

These indicators, of course, point to the highest level of consolidation within Russian society around the head of state.

Putin had encouraged Russians to vote in support of troops in Ukraine, and Moscow also organised voting in occupied Ukraine.

Pamfilova said turnout was over 59%, thanking Russians for voting despite what she called “psychological pressure on Russia”.

Russia’s Ukraine campaign broke its ties with the West. Kyiv hit Moscow with its biggest drone attack of the war on Sunday, the last day of voting, killing two people and setting an oil refinery ablaze.

“Despite the extreme situation, we were successful in ensuring the maximum security of these elections,” Pamfilova told a Moscow press conference.

War veterans enter Duma

Forty-nine veterans who fought for Moscow in Ukraine are expected to enter parliament to represent United Russia, the party told Russian state media.

The Kremlin has sought to promulgate soldiers who fought in Ukraine into positions of authority when they return, with Moscow glorifying its troops.

A local resident holds his ballot next to the picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin while voting in the parliamentary elections at a polling station in the local club on 19 September in Istra, Russia.

Contributor/Getty Images

While nobody in Russia doubted United Russia would win, the election did bring one unexpected result: in the Novgorod region, in western Russia, war-critical Yabloko entered the regional parliament.

On social media, Yabloko’s Novgorod branch said it received some 12,000 votes - just over 6% of the votes in the region - enough to enter the regional legislature.

It said:

Peace, freedom and life without fear - these are the values that have struck a chord in people’s hearts and souls.

In central Moscow, Alexey, a 41-year-old quality director who declined to give his full name, told AFP that United Russia won “in an uncompetitive contest, since the Yabloko party was removed from the race.”

“From my point of view, we’ve definitely moved further away from peace,” he said, adding, “There are no alternative solutions right now, so everything will stay the same.”

Russia’s Communist party came second in the vote, winning 40 Duma seats. The nationalist LDPR party took 25 seats, and the New People party won 20.

The election result is expected to further tighten Putin’s grip on power.

Some fear a new military mobilisation in Russia. Putin has denied this while Kyiv accuses Moscow of planning a call-up in the coming weeks.

READ | Russians go to polls as Putin ties election to war in Ukraine

The election took place amid the escalation of the Ukraine war with no diplomatic solution in sight.

In some regions, voting also took place for the local heads.

In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov - known for ruling the Muslim-majority republic with an iron fist - won 99.85% of the vote, the electoral commission said.

‘Veneer of democracy’

Opposing Kadyrov is hugely dangerous in Chechnya, which is known for extra-judicial killings.

Putin’s political opponents are in exile, prison or dead - such as his main opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in 2024.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, dismissed Russia’s “so-called” election.

“The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine, and shut out international election monitors. The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia,” Kallas said.

In a joint statement, five countries, including the UK, Australia and Canada, condemned Russia’s “sham” parliamentary elections in swathes of occupied Ukraine, branding the move “part of a wider system of occupation”.