Allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin comfortably won a parliamentary election, early results showed on Monday. The ruling United Russia party won 51 percent in Sunday’s election, according to a preliminary central election commission tally after a quarter of the votes had been counted.
Putin, speaking a few minutes after polling stations closed on Sunday night, said that the win showed voters still trusted the leadership despite an economic slowdown made worse by Western sanctions over Ukraine.
“We can say with certainty that the party has achieved a very good result; it’s won,” Putin said at the United Russia headquarters, where he arrived together with his ally, Dmitry Medvedev, who is prime minister and the party’s leader.
Alluding to the spluttering economy, which is forecast to shrink this year by at least 0.3 percent, Putin said: “We know that life is hard for people, there are lots of problems, lots of unresolved problems. Nevertheless, we have this result.”
According to the incomplete official vote count, the populist LDPR party was in second place with 15.1 percent, the Communists were in third on 14.9 percent and the left-of-centre Just Russia party was fourth with 6.4 percent.