United Russia Wins 63per Cent of Votes

By ALISON CHIESA

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin’s party is on course for a landslide victory in Russia’s election, after early results showed it winning more than 60per cent of the vote.

With 64.4per cent of polling papers counted, United Russia had 62.8per cent of the vote, with nearest rivals the Communist Party on 11.7per cent. A victory of this scale would be seen by the Kremlin as a mandate for Putin to maintain a position of influence after his second presidential term ends next May.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The overwhelming majority of Russian voters spoke in favour of United Russia, thus supporting President Putin’s course, and spoke in favour of it being continued after the current president’s second term ends.”

But election monitors reported widespread ballot fraud and opposition groups including the Communist Party said they would contest the election in the courts.

Gennady Zyuganov, Communist leader, said: “These results are not fair. We intend to challenge them in the Supreme Court.”

The liberal SPS party said it would take similar legal action.

Fears of vote-rigging spread to the United States. White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: “We urge Russian authorities to investigate these claims.”

However, Vladimir Churov, the Central Election Commission chairman, dismissed the claims, saying: “I think there were no serious violations on polling day.”

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

(c) 2007 Herald, The; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.