Kremlin-backed Party Aims for Two-Thirds Majority

Russians watching television on Sunday could predict the outcome of the country’s first parliamentary election since President Vladimir Putin came into power just as clearly as any analyst. All the state-run and even the semi-private stations are focusing on just one party -- United Russia. Although 23 parties are competing for seats in the Duma, only the Kremlin-backed party receives attention in the hourly news broadcasts.

Both Cannel One and Rossia -- the two main state-run stations -- showed Putin smiling and looking at ease while announcing that most Russians knew which party he endorsed, namely United Russia whose events he attended with public fanfare. "My preferences are well know," Putin told reporters after he cast his ballot.

Clear victory for Putin

Going into the election, opinion polls put United Russia in the lead with 30-40 percent of the votes, well ahead of the opposition Communists and the small liberal Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces. Running on a platform based largely on lending support to Putin, who has an approval rating of more than 80 percent, the party is assured of victory.

The only real question that remains ahead of tallying the final results is whether United Russia, an alliance of pro-Kremlin factions headed by Putin’s ally, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, will manage to get a two-thirds majority in the 450-seat parliament. If United Russia and its conservative allies can secure more than 300 seats in the Duma, it would comprise a majority and essentially allow Putin to institute constitutional changes, such as enabling the president to run again after the end of his likely second term in 2008.

"The goal is to get as close as possible to a constitutional majority," Nikolai Pedrov, a political analyst at the Moscow-based Carnegie Foundation told DW-RADIO.

Putin is set for re-election in March and has thrown his full weight behind United Russia. Lending the party his face for ads, it has campaigned with the slogan: "Together with the President."

Pre-defined results

In the run-up to the elections, voter interest in the parties and their issues has been relatively low. This is largely due to the publishing of "pre-defined results" ahead of the elections, said Pedrov. People already know ahead of time who the winner is, so there is no reason for them to go out and vote.

Critics also suggest that the expected low voter turnout may be a consequence of the Kremlin’s overbearing influence on the elections, where United Russia uses state control of television to dominate the media and essentially silence the opposition. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring the elections, has said that pre-election campaigning was marred by pro-Kremlin bias in the media, particularly across state-owned television.

Many Russians are critical of the dominance of the Putin-backed party in the media. In Yekaterinburg, on the border between Europe and Asia, voters said they saw no alternative to United Russia.

"Nothing will change, everything was decided beforehand," a Russian lamented to Western reporters before casting his ballot. "It was United Russia and it will stay that way. Of course I still hope things will change, but I’m not expecting anything out of the ordinary," he said.