United Russia passes test of Duma election
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Xinhua, December 6, 2011
The United Russia party gained 238 out of the total of 450 seats in Sunday's State Duma election, Central Election Commission (CEC) chief Vladimir Churov said Monday.
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A local election commission officials open a ballot box to count votes at a polling station in Moscow, on December 4, 2011. Russia's ruling party was leading the country's legislative elections with 45.9 percent of the vote based on over 17 percent of the precincts reporting. [Xinhua] |
The preliminary results showed that the current ruling party of Russia had passed a critical test and gained another five years at the helm of the lower house of parliament.
Local analysts said United Russia's victory would secure political stability in the country and pave the way for its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to return to presidency.
Long-time dominant place
Founded on Dec. 1, 2001, United Russia won a landslide victory in the 2007 Duma election and gained 315 seats, enjoying a constitutional majority in the chamber.
Although the party's seats in the new Duma decreased sharply from the previous 315, it still keeps an absolute majority in the house, which could allow the party to implement its major policies, officials and analysts said.
Several senior members of the ruling party, including First Deputy Secretary of United Russia's General Council Presidium Andrei Isayev, said the party didn't want to seek another "constitutional majority" in the new Duma, because an "absolute majority" was enough for the party to push bills through.
Besides, according to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who led the party's list in the election, United Russia would have to forge a coalition with other political parties on certain issues in the new Duma.
Igor Bunin, head of the Center of Political Technologies, told Xinhua on Monday that United Russia only retained a much-reduced majority, but it would not affect the party's operation in the new Duma.
"Because 'constitutional majority' will only be used when amending the constitution, which is very rare," Bunin said.
"In all other cases, United Russia could strike deals with other parties," he said, adding that the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) was the first choice for the ruling party.
According to the CEC, the Communist Party, A Just Russia and the LDPR would share the rest seats in the Duma, which means the faction pattern in the new Duma remained unchanged.
Behind United Russia's victory
In recent years, the association of United Russia with Putin, the most influential political figure in Russia, yielded tangible results in political, economic and social areas in the country.
Such a tie was seen as one of the main factors for United Russia's victory in Sunday's election.
Moreover, Russia's political tandem, Putin and Medvedev, had successfully fought a brief war with Georgia and tackled the financial turmoil since 2008.
Pre-election polls of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed Friday that some 54 percent of respondents gave positive comments on the country's current political course, while only 20 percent held opposite views.
However, as a long-time ruling party, United Russia has inevitably encountered the so-called "political fatigue" among the Russian public.
"It is psychologically natural that people grow tired of the ruling team, as it remains the same for several election cycles," Bunin told Xinhua.
In response to the "political fatigue," Putin and United Russia changed their strategies to attract more "new faces," and that was why Putin's proposal of launching an umbrella organization called the All-Russia Popular Front was so popular in the country.
But amid global financial woes, the continuing debt crisis in Europe and corruption and inflation in Russia, Russian voters voiced their loud complaints in the election.
After the election, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the LDPR, told reporters that many Russians had voted for the Communist Party, the main opposition in the country, to show their discontent.
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