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Enlarge PhotoRussia's President Dmitry Medvedev (L) and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) speak …
Enlarge PhotoAnarchists protest in central Moscow against corruption in Russia's parliamentary …
Vladimir
Putin's ruling party Monday barely won half the vote in legislative
polls marred by claims of dirty tricks by the authorities, a major
setback for the Russian strongman ahead of his planned Kremlin comeback.
United Russia won just 50.16 percent of the vote, the central
election commission said in results based on 85 percent of polling
stations, while the Communist Party was second with 19.13 percent.
The
poor showing comes after the Russian strongman announced in September
he planned to reclaim his old Kremlin job in March presidential polls,
reflecting that more and more Russians may be growing disillusioned with
his 11-year rule.
The outcome marks a major reversal from the
last parliamentary elections in 2007 when United Russia secured a
landslide majority of 64.3 percent and won 315 seats in the lower house
of parliament, the 450-seat State Duma.
Veteran Communist Party
leader Gennady Zyuganov said the vote was a wake-up call for the Kremlin
showing it would have to make more room for the opposition in
parliament.
"People have refused to give credence to the
authorities, and in the future we will have a dramatically new political
layout in the Duma," he said.
Putin sought to put a brave face on the results, saying the polling results reflected the state of affairs in the country.
"Based
on these results, we will be able to ensure the stable development of
our country," he said in a terse speech standing alongside President
Dmitry Medvedev at United Russia campaign headquarters.
Medvedev
rejected the claims of foul play by the authorities, saying the election
results showed Russian "democracy in action" and reflected voters' true
moods.
Opponents and Moscow-based Western-funded observer group
Golos had said the vote was marred by unprecedented violations as the
ruling elite downed websites and harassed monitors to limit dissent.
Putin,
who has dominated Russia since 2000, is widely expected to win back his
old Kremlin job in March presidential elections after his four-year
stint as prime minister.
His protege Medvedev is set to step aside
and become prime minister, in a job swap that the two men hope will
determine Russia's political future and stability for years to come.
The
populist A Just Russia group had 12.98 percent of the vote while the
ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party was fourth with 11.8 percent,
the results showed.
"The authorities are losing trust -- it's a
new situation for them," said Sergei Lukashevsky, head of the Andrei
Sakharov Museum and Public Center.
"The regime's ideology is exhausting itself."
Maria
Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the ruling
party's poor showing will present the Kremlin with a choice. "What to do
next?" she said. "To tighten the screws or get adjusted to a new
reality in which United Russia no longer has an unchallenged monopoly?"
Moscow Echo radio, citing senior United Russia sources, reported that
United Russia chairman Boris Gryzlov would resign his post as Duma
speaker, in a sign that the Kremlin will draw lessons from Sunday's
vote. The party refused to confirm the report.
Veteran liberal
politician Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko party trailed in fifth place with
3 percent of the vote, insufficient to qualify for seats, the results
showed.
Yavlinsky said support for his party was strong in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where around one in five voted for Yabloko.
Exit
polls all showed United Russia winning less than 50 percent of the
vote. The state-controlled All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre
(VTsIOM) said United Russia was to win 48.5 percent, ahead of the
Communist Party with 19.8 percent.
The four years since
the last parliamentary election have been marked by an outburst of
criticism of the authorities on the Internet as web penetration of
Russia started to finally catch up with the rest of Europe.
Putin
was recently subjected to unprecedented booing when he made an
appearance at a martial arts fight and opinion polls have shown chinks
in his once impregnable popularity.
Golos observer group, which
claimed rampant violations in the campaign, said its "Map of Violations"
website documenting reports of fraud was inaccessible due a
cyber-attack and its email was paralysed.
The Communists complained the elections were hit by "mass fraud" that turned them into a "war zone".
The
marathon election process in the world's largest country kicked off in
Pacific Ocean regions and concluded 21 hours later when polls closed in
the exclave of Kaliningrad bordering the European Union, nine time zones
away.
Results from Russia's regions showed miserable performances
by United Russia, especially in far-flung regions where resentment
about the policies of the authorities in distant Moscow is highest.
United
Russia won just 33.9 percent in the Far Eastern Primorye region that
includes the port of Vladivostok, despite a massive spending project by
the authorities to host an Asian summit next year.
Police
detained around 200 protesters including radical opposition leader
Eduard Limonov for holding an unsanctioned protest in Moscow, while
another 70 were held at a similar event in Saint Petersburg, police
said.