| MOSCOW, Dec. 8 — President Vladimir V. Putin today
described as "free, honest, open and democratic" the parliamentary
elections here that international observers criticized only moments later
as a step backward in Russia's democratic transition.
United Russia, the party defined almost entirely by its fealty to Mr.
Putin, swept to overwhelming victory on Sunday after benefiting, the observers
said, from fawning coverage on state television and official support at
all levels of government.
Riding Mr. Putin's popularity, United Russia crushed the Communist Party
and ousted all but a handful of liberal democrats from the parliament,
capturing the most votes of any party in any election since the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991.
As the last votes were being counted today, the extent of Mr. Putin's
electoral victory became clear.
With the support of two nationalist parties, the Liberal Democratic
Party and Motherland, deputies loyal to the Kremlin are projected to hold
nearly two-thirds of the parliament's 450 seats, cementing Mr. Putin's
political dominance as he begins his campaign for a second term next March.
"It is absolutely clear that these results reflect the real sympathies
of the population," Mr. Putin said in his first public remarks since
the results became clear late Sunday night. "They reflect what the
people of Russia think. They reflect the realities of our political life."
Two groups that sent election observers, the Council of Europe and the
Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in a report that
the results also reflected "the extensive use of the state apparatus
and media favoritism to benefit the largest pro-presidential party."
The report, based on the findings of 500 observers, offered some of
the harshest European criticism yet of Russian elections, saying the vote
called into question "Russia's willingness to move towards European
standards for democratic elections."
The president of the organization's parliamentary assembly, Bruce George,
said at a news conference that the vote on Sunday represented a "regression
in the democratization process" in Russia. He also cited "blatant
fraud" in the vote in the republic of Bashkortostan and "irregularities"
in Siberia and the Far East.
In Washington, the White House voiced concerns, though mildly.
There was universal agreement across the political spectrum that Sunday's
election heralded a new era, but there was profound disagreement over
what kind of era it would be.
The country's two main liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right
Forces, fell short of the 5 percent threshold of votes required to secure
a bloc of seats. It was the first time since the first parliamentary elections
in 1993 that a democratic party failed to win a bloc.
Half of the parliament's 450 seats are apportioned based on overall
party votes, while the rest are chosen in individual districts. The final
results of all the district races are not yet complete. So far Yabloko
has won three of those races, the Union of Right Forces one.
The two parties, which represented a small but vocal coalition of reformist,
pro-Western deputies, have now been marginalized to the point of extinction.
It is not clear they will survive as political parties, as Yabloko's leader,
Grigory A. Yavlinsky, acknowledged
in an interview in a hotel cafe across the Moscow River from the Kremlin.
"We now have, again, a one-party parliament," said Mr. Yavlinsky,
who has been the public face of Russia's democrats for the last decade.
"Russia has had no such parliament since Brezhnev."
Vladislav Y. Surkov, an influential Putin adviser who orchestrated the
Kremlin's political strategy, said in a rare interview today that the
results signaled the demise of "the old political system, which is
based on Marxist dogmas of the right and left flanks."
"A new political era is coming," he told Interfax, "and
the parties that have not gotten into the Duma should be calm about it
and realize that their historical mission has been completed."
With 98 percent of the vote counted, United Russia won 37 percent. While
the final composition of the parliament will not be settled until next
week, the party was projected to control around half the seats outright.
The Communist Party, led by Gennady A. Zhuganov, received only 12.7
percent of the vote, nearly half its showing in 1999, when it won the
largest bloc of seats.
The Communist still managed to eke out a victory over the Liberal Democratic
Party, led by Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, which received 11.6 percent of
the vote.
Motherland, a new party created only months before the election, received
9 percent. One of the party's leaders, Dmitri O. Rogozin, who campaigned
on a nationalistic message, dismissed the criticism of the election, saying
the observers were "directly interfering in Russia's internal affairs."
Mr. Putin seemed to anticipate criticism of the elections. He said Russia
would work to overcome "all shortcomings" in the voting, but
called the election "one more step for the strengthening of democracy"
in Russia. He noted that the low turnout — while a disappointing
56 percent of eligible voters — was close to those in Britain and
Canada.
See also:
State Duma elections
2003
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