Russia’s pro-Kremlin party wins parliamentary elections amid fraud claims

Moscow, Sep 20 (EFE).- The governing pro-Kremlin party United Russia has emerged as the winner from the country’s parliamentary elections, amid reports of election fraud.

With almost all ballots counted, United Russia had garnered 49.85% of the votes, followed by the Communist Party with 18.96%, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced.

“United Russia, as you can see, got the highest number of votes, which guarantees it a legislative majority, although its results have decreased slightly compared to 2016,” said CEC chief Ella Pamfilova.

The ruling party’s general council secretary Andrei Turchak estimated the number of seats they won stood at 315. Five years ago, United Russia, which has been in power for 20 years, won 334 seats in the State Duma.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the elections fair, open and competitive.

“It goes without saying that for the president it was most important to see competitive, open and fair elections,” Peskov was quoted by local media during a press conference.

“From this standpoint, we assess the just-held election process as very, very positive,” he added.

Meanwhile, the opposition, as well as observers, made claims of election fraud.

Communist candidates in Moscow complained of irregularities, saying voting results in the capital were not published online Monday morning while there had already been results from the other six regions of the country a few hours after polling stations closed on Sunday.

Most of the outspoken critics of Putin were barred from running in the elections.