Foreign observers issued a damning verdict on President Putin yesterday after accusing the Kremlin of rigging Russia's parliamentary elections.

They alleged that he had abused his position and broke international commitments in order to secure a massive victory for his United Russia party. The party won 64.1 per cent of the vote and will hold 315 of the 450 seats in parliament, the Duma — enough to change the Constitution.

President Putin is banned by the Constitution from a third consecutive term. United Russia, however, turned the election into a referendum on his popularity as a prelude to anointing him the country's “national leader”.

The party congress will meet on December 17 to name its candidate for the presidential election in March, amid continuing speculation that Mr Putin plans to return to the Kremlin after a brief rule by a tame successor to get around the ban.

Mr Putin called the result legitimate and dismissed accusations of cheating. The election, which attracted 63 per cent of Russia's 109 million eligible voters on Sunday, had been “an obvious success and a good victory”.

The scathing assessment of Russian democracy came from observers for the parliamentary assemblies of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Russia is a member of both bodies.

Goran Lennmarker, president of the OSCE's assembly, said: “This election was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards.”

Luc van den Brande, head of the CoE's delegation, criticised the “overwhelming influence of the President's office and the President”. He added: “If Russia is a managed democracy then this was a managed election.” The fall of the Berlin Wall had ended Cold War divisions in Europe but there was now a risk of “a new dividing line in terms of democracy”.

Mr Putin headed the election list of United Russia and campaigned hard for the party, despite an agreement by OSCE members to maintain “a clear separation between the State and political parties”.

The Communist Party came a distant second with 11.6 per cent of the vote. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Fair Russia, both pro-Putin, were the only others to win seats to a Duma that will have no pro-Western voice for the first time since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

There were suspiciously high returns in some regions. Chechnya, which was considered too dangerous for monitors to visit, reported a 99.5 per cent turnout with 99.4 per cent voting for United Russia.

The LDPR's success means that Andrei Lugovoy, the man Britain accuses of murdering the dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, becomes a Duma member with immunity from prosecution in Russia.

He is likely to be nominated as deputy head of the security committee in the Duma.

Germany led a chorus of criticism by European governments. There appears no prospect of sanctions, however. Both Mr Lennmarker and Mr van den Brande said that Russia's membership of their organisations was not in question.

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