President Putin secured a landslide victory in parliamentary elections last night, amid opposition complaints of extensive vote-rigging. The result could pave the way for him to retain power in Russia.

Mr Putin’s United Russia party won 63.2 per cent, with half of votes counted, while its nearest rival, the Communist Party, secured only 11.5 per cent.

Two pro-Kremlin parties – the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Fair Russia – were the only others expected to win seats in a Duma that will lack a liberal, pro-Western voice for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Projections on Russian television showed that United Russia and its allies will control almost 90 per cent of the chamber’s 450 seats. The LDPR’s likely 10 per cent share means that Andrei Lugovoy, the man accused by Britain of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident spy, will become a member of parliament.

Mr Putin had said that a decisive victory would hand him the moral authority to hold the Government to account once his second term as President expires in March. The scale of his success will now focus attention on how he intends to wield that power in the presidential elections in March.

United Russia had turned the election into a referendum on his popularity as part of a plan to declare him the “national leader” of Russia. Mr Putin cannot stand for a third consecutive term but many analysts expect him to return to the Kremlin after a short reign as president by a loyal placeman.

The President heads United Russia’s electoral list but is not expected to sit in the Duma. He was in festive mood as he voted in Moscow with his wife, Lyudmila, saying that people would support “the party whose programme they think is convincing”.

Millions of voters willingly backed his choice after eight years of rising prosperity under his presidency. They also credit him with restoring Russia’s international prestige after years of chaos under Boris Yeltsin. “The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is a national leader, that the people support his course and this course will continue,” Boris Gryzlov, the United Russia leader in the Duma, said.

Vladimir Churov, the Central Election Commission chairman, said that turnout among the 109 million eligible voters had exceeded 60 per cent “for the first time in many years”. It was 56 per cent in the 2003 Duma election.

Gennadi Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader, called it “the dirtiest, most irresponsible” election since the demise of the Soviet Union. The party said that it would challenge the results. The liberal Union of Right Forces, which got 1 per cent, said that it would also challenge “the most dishonest elections in Russian history”.

Garry Kasparov, leader of the Other Russia group, also joined the chorus of opposition protests, decrying the election as a "farce" that was "rigged from the start". The former world chess champion spent five days in prison last week for leading an unauthorised march against Putin.

International poll monitors will give their assessment today, but the Russian organisation Golos (Voice) reported thousands of complaints of abuse. Aleksandr Kynev, its spokesman, said that there had been “unprecedented pressure on voters . . . they are being reported from all over the country”.

Suspiciously high voting was reported in some regions. Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnya, claimed that 99 per cent of people had voted, while Interfax reported a 98 per cent turnout in nearby Ingushetia.

Complaints of intimidation were widespread. Teachers, doctors and other state employees told of threats from government officials to vote for United Russia or lose their jobs. Local officials offered subsidised food, free mobile phone minutes and tickets to entertainment as inducements for people to go to polling stations. Voters in Novorossiisk had a chance to win a car and laptop computers. Mobile phones were offered as prizes in Chukotka, where Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea FC owner, voted as governor.

Eleven parties were on the ballot in the first election conducted under new rules that critics say have put the process even more tightly in the Kremlin’s grip. For the first time since Russians voted in the post-Communist era, independent politicians could not run but had to be affiliated to a party. Individual constituencies, which previously accounted for half of all Duma seats, have been scrapped in favour of party lists.

The new rules

- The minimum threshold of votes required to win seats was raised from 5 per cent to 7 per cent

- Parties were barred from forming coalitions before the election to prevent them clearing this hurdle

- Registration requirements to get on the ballot were toughened

- Parties had to have at least 50,000 members, up from 10,000

- Parties not already represented in the Duma had to pay a deposit of 60 million roubles (£1.2 million) or gather 200,000 signatures to back their participation

- Police used a law against “extremism” to seize election materials from opponents of United Russia for inspection

- Parties were barred from giving “negative information”, which state-controlled television interpreted as a ban on criticism

- TV debates were rendered meaningless when United Russia refused to participate

Source: Times research

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