Russia’s ruling party heads for victory in regional balloting, amid signs of voter discontent

more images

more images

Russia’s ruling party heads for victory

MOSCOW — The ruling United Russia party appeared headed for an expected victory in regional elections Sunday, according to partial results, although many disgruntled voters threw their support behind opposition candidates.

With about 25 percent of votes counted, United Russia looked set to lose one high-profile contest — the mayoral elections in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which has seen a series of anti-government protests in recent weeks. A Communist candidate was leading Sunday night.

Partial counts showed United Russia getting less than 50 percent of the vote in most of the ballots to choose regional legislatures, although it appeared to be enough to control a plurality of seats in all cases.

The last major Russian regional election in October ended in a landslide for United Russia, but was marred by allegations of widespread fraud.

Sunday’s vote in 76 of Russia’s 83 regions came at a time of growing anti-government street protests.

United Russia was looking for the ballots to prove that it could still garner broad support despite the country’s continuing economic hardships and high unemployment.

As the results were coming in, one United Russia official took the unusual step of calling the balloting “dirty” and trading accusations of fraud with the opposition.

United Russia, chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, normally defends the legitimacy of Russian elections, which it usually wins with a wide margin.

United Russia parliamentary deputy Vyacheslav Timchenko said in a statement issued by the party that the elections were marked by a “shockingly large number of violations.”

He said Russia’s three main parliamentary opposition parties — the Communists, the right-wing Liberal Democrats and the left-leaning Just Russia party — were involved in vote buying, an accusation frequently leveled against United Russia in past elections.

“These are very dirty elections… One gets the impression that certain opposition parties have taken the president’s call for greater democratization and electoral development as an excuse to break the law,” Timchenko was quoted as saying.

In an article in September, President Dmitry Medvedev called for greater political pluralism, saying that Russia should move toward a system where competing parties periodically take power.

All of the parties represented in the Russian parliament generally support the Kremlin’s agenda, seldom criticizing the policies of Putin or Medvedev.

Opposition candidates and parties that challenge the Kremlin generally fail to qualify for the ballot.

Earlier Sunday, the Communists had claimed United Russia was abusing its administrative resources in the Krasnodar mayoral elections by busing police cadets to vote for the party’s candidate in districts where they were not registered.

Russia’s main independent elections watchdog, Golos, also reported irregularities in many regions, including factory workers in Ekaterinburg being pressured to vote for United Russia by their employers.

“Considering the economic situation, we were expecting United Russia to lose some of its support,” Golos director Lilya Shibanova said. “This shows that even with the administrative resources at their disposal, they are no longer able to orchestrate landslides.”

Central Election Commission director Vladimir Churov, a longtime Putin associate known for deflecting opposition claims of vote fraud, attacked “political technologists” in the region of Ryazan for trying to skew the vote.

He said they had handed out free alcohol to voters on election day, Interfax news agency reported. It was not clear whether he was criticizing United Russia or another party.

“That was a clear provocation… Unfortunately, my dream that the last political technologist will be dead hasn’t come true yet,” Churov was quoted as saying.

Across the country, there were more than 6,000 local elections and referendums Sunday.