Kremlin party achieves two-thirds majority in the Duma

The Kremlin's United Russia party renewed its constitutional majority in the Duma, or lower house of the Russian parliament, after winning more than two-thirds of the chamber's 315 seats in elections that ended on Sunday, sources from the ruling party confirmed on Monday.

"According to data as of 8 a.m. (05.00 GMT), United Russia won more than 48 per cent of citizens' votes, giving us 120 seats. At the same time, our candidates are leading in 195 majority constituencies," the party's secretary general, Andrei Turchak, was quoted as saying by Interfax.

After 70 per cent of the ballots were counted, United Russia won 48.46 per cent of the votes, the country's Central Election Commission (CEC) said.

In addition, the ruling party's candidates led in almost two hundred of the 225 majority constituencies at stake.

In the 2016 elections, the ruling party won more than 54.20 per cent of the vote, which allowed it to win 334 seats and pass laws without needing to make a deal with the opposition in parliament.

In second place, according to preliminary data from the CEC after a vote that was extended for three days due to the coronavirus pandemic, is the Communist Party with 20.30 per cent of the support, compared to the 13.34 per cent it had obtained in the 2016 elections.

The Liberal-Democratic Party (7.69 per cent), the social democrats of Just Russia (7.43 per cent) and the newly formed New People (5.55 per cent) also exceeded the 5 per cent threshold needed to enter the chamber.

More than 110 million citizens were called to the polls, of whom 2.6 million had registered to vote electronically in Moscow and six regions.

Voter turnout was over 45 per cent, according to official figures.

Shortly before the polls closed, communists denounced fraud in several regions of the country, from the European part of the country to Siberia and the Far East.

In turn, the CEC downplayed the significance of the violations, claiming that they did not influence the final outcome of the elections.

The Ministry of the Interior also confirmed that there were no irregularities during the three days of voting that could have had an impact on the outcome of the elections.