Russia’s ruling party is heading for another commanding win in elections to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. The vote ran for three days, from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September, and produced no surprises: in a political system tightly controlled by the Kremlin, United Russia, the party of President Vladimir Putin, was expected to stay far ahead of everyone else.
- 57.86%United Russia party-list vote (90.43% counted)
- ~57%Turnout as of Sunday night
- 326Duma seats United Russia won in 2021, out of 450
- 3.6m+People who voted online, per TASS
The numbers so far
The Central Election Commission’s partial count, reported by state news agency TASS and relayed by Al Jazeera, gave United Russia 57.86% of the party-list vote. Half of the Duma’s 450 seats are allocated from party lists, with the other 225 decided in single-seat races, where United Russia is also projected to win most. The Communist Party (CPRF) was on 13.84%, the nationalist LDPR on 8.9%, New People on 7.94% and A Just Russia on 4.95%, right at the edge of the 5% threshold needed for list seats. Final results are not expected before Friday.
The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg wrote that preliminary results suggested United Russia would keep its constitutional majority, with even bigger numbers than last time. The BBC noted that the outcome came after more than four and a half years of war, heavy battlefield losses, economic difficulties and, most recently, widespread petrol shortages after Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil facilities.
An election without an anti-war choice
All the parties in the new Duma largely vote the same way as United Russia, and the last parliament backed the Kremlin and the war. The one exception was Yabloko, the only anti-war party permitted to take part. Twelve days after it was registered, the Supreme Court removed its list from the ballot, which the BBC described as a sign of Kremlin concern that its pro-peace message was gaining traction. Al Jazeera reported that most anti-war candidates were barred and that two senior Yabloko figures were given long jail terms for comments on the war.
Around 100 Yabloko candidates remained in single-seat races, but preliminary results showed none winning. Party chairman Nikolai Rybakov told the BBC that some candidates were in jail, many were barred, and some election observers were not registered. He publicly spoiled his own ballot with the words “For peace”.
Occupied regions and the war’s shadow
Voting also took place in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow annexed illegally in 2022, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, and in Crimea, seized in 2014. The United Nations and most countries do not recognise those territories as part of Russia, and Kyiv denounced their inclusion. On the final day of voting Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack on the Moscow area. Three people were killed in the Moscow region and the capital’s oil refinery was hit, the BBC reported. Voters the BBC spoke to near the refinery described a quiet resignation rather than surprise.
A silent protest, and what comes next
The Berlin-based think tank NEST, co-founded by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said the war’s consequences are increasingly felt inside Russia and that frustration could translate into votes for the “systemic opposition” parties allowed on the ballot, such as the Communists and New People, even though those parties seldom challenge the president.
The larger question is what the Kremlin does with the result. Rosenberg wrote that it is likely to claim most Russians have rallied behind the president and treat the vote as a mandate to continue the war. Putin recently ruled out a new wave of mobilisation, saying there is “no scenario today” that would require it. Even so, the BBC reported deep anxiety in Russian society about the possibility of a new round of call-ups, despite official denials.
How to read the result
Because the choices on offer were tightly limited, the vote says little about the range of opinion in Russia. What it does show is the strength of the Kremlin’s control over who can stand, how the vote is run and how the outcome will be described. Observers will now look at the final turnout, the final seat count, and the government’s next moves on the war and the economy.
