# Putin's United Russia loses ground in parliamentary election **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049 "2011-12-04T20:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/1 "2011-12-04T20:22:20Z")
[Still the biggest party, but no longer supermajority.](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/2011124173124116260.html) > [@](#): > > Russia’s central election commission has said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party leads the country’s legislative elections with around 46 per cent of the vote, with just 17 per cent of precincts reporting. > > \ > > Meanwhile, Russia’s Communist Party denounced the elections after polls closed, saying “mass fraud” has turned them into a “war zone”. > > “We have received thousands of calls from regional offices, confirming massive violations and fraud,” said deputy head of the Communist party, Ivan Melnikov. Well, there you are. Even **with** fraud, United Russia can’t win it all: > [@](#): > > But early returns from the vote signal the ruling party may lose its current two-thirds majority that allowed it to change the constitution unchallenged, with a decline from 315 seats to around 220 in the Duma - lower house of parliament. > > \ > > United Russia is followed by the Communist Party with nearly 20 per cent of the vote, according to two separate exit polls cited by Channel One and Rossiya television. > > The All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre said the opposition A Just Russia party would gain 12.8 per cent and the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party 11.4 per cent - with other parties not polling enough to make parliament. [United Russia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Russia) is “centrist.” (Which probably makes it the most palatable to the West of all of these, but it’s also corrupt to the core.) [The Communist Party of the Russian Federation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation) is Marxist-Leninist with Russian nationalism added. (Isn’t **anybody** an international socialist any more?!) [A Just Russia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Just_Russia) is a social-democratic, welfare-statist party. [The Liberal Democratic Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_of_Russia) is social-conservative and hyper-nationalist. So – does this perhaps mean post-Soviet Russia **won’t** spend the next 70 years or so as a quasi-democracy dominated by one party, like Mexico under the PRI? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/2 "2011-12-04T23:26:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (Isn’t **anybody** an international socialist any more?!) I don’t think anyone ever was. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/3 "2011-12-05T01:05:48Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t think anyone ever was. Lenin was – he didn’t even think (at first) that revolution in Russia was important in the general scheme of things, except as it might serve as a spark to ignite the real revolution in the industrialized countries. And the first post-revolution priority, as he saw it, was putting together a United Europe – necessarily predominated by Germany, not Russia. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/4 "2011-12-05T01:35:16Z")
It’s definitely an interesting development, considering United Russia didn’t expect to lose ground in the Duma. But it won’t have any bearing on the March elections until there is some viable oppositional party. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/5 "2011-12-06T01:03:29Z")
[Rally in Moscow protesting election fraud.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16042797) Which the international observers found in plenty. Official results: > [@](#): > > Electoral Commission head Vladimir Churov said United Russia should have a slim majority, with 238 seats out of 450. > > This would mean the party losing its current two-thirds majority which had allowed it to change the constitution unchallenged. > > Mr Churov said the Communist Party was in second place with 19.2% of the vote, giving it 92 seats. > > A Just Russia was in third place with 13.2% and 64 seats, and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) had 11.7% and 56, he added. > > The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg, in Moscow, says that, if confirmed, the result will be a significant embarrassment to Mr Putin, three months before he is scheduled to run again for the Russian presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/6 "2011-12-06T02:29:44Z")
Shouldn’t this be in Elections? Incidentally don’t forget the Russian Communist party unlike during its Soviet days has rehabilitated Stalin and considers him a great man. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/7 "2011-12-06T03:10:43Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Shouldn’t this be in Elections? Actually, I meant to post it there and wouldn’t object to a move. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Incidentally don’t forget the Russian Communist party unlike during its Soviet days has rehabilitated Stalin and considers him a great man. I suspect that’s more a matter of their new nationalist-patriotism (Stalin being the man who turned Russia into an industrial superpower and beat back Hitler) than any desire to actually reinstate Stalinism. I do wonder what the CPOTRF would do in a majority; it might have to rethink itself and what it’s about. ---
**Author:** ![ladyfoxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/8 "2011-12-06T14:17:30Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Incidentally don’t forget the Russian Communist party unlike during its Soviet days has rehabilitated Stalin and considers him a great man. The Communist party will still never provide much competition to UR, even if they picked up a substantially higher percentage of the Duma than they did last time. And incidentally there are plenty of Russians who consider Stalin a great man, but I don’t know what that has to do with anything actually. ---
**Author:** ![Chris\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Chris\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chris_1)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/9 "2011-12-06T16:03:45Z")
> [@ladyfoxfyre](#): > > The Communist party will still never provide much competition to UR, even if they picked up a substantially higher percentage of the Duma than they did last time. And incidentally there are plenty of Russians who consider Stalin a great man, but I don’t know what that has to do with anything actually. I would’t consider the results as ‘back to the roots’ as well. I mean in the end, reactions do not always derive from a ‘nostalgic feeling’…It was and still is just worrying how unreal the elections are..Looks like Clinton has her own doubts as well.. > **[Clinton cites ‘serious concerns’ about Russian election | CNN](https://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/06/world/europe/russia-elections-clinton/index.html)** > > Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a “full investigation” of irregularities in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Russia. ---
**Author:** ![Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a587f6/32.png) [@Lago\_Ys-Transform](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lago_Ys-Transform)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/10 "2011-12-06T16:46:03Z")
NT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/putins-united-russia-loses-ground-in-parliamentary-election/605049/11 "2011-12-10T17:30:12Z")
[Election-fraud protests in cities across Russia.](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/2011121053755418485.html) Organized via social-networking sites, I heard on NPR, which means they’re having them even in small, remote cities.