Pro-Kremlin's United Russia loses its 'super constitutional majority' in Russian parliament
MOSCOW, Russia — United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party with unalloyed loyalty to Vladimir Putin, the country’s powerful prime minister and the presidential candidate for the March 2012 election, lost its constitutional majority in the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian bicameral parliament, as it managed to win a simple majority of 238 of the chamber’s 450 seats at the December 4 election, a palpable decrease from the record 315 seats — termed ‘super constitutional majority’ — in the 2007 polls.
With almost all the ballots counted, the ruling United Russia Party’s votes tally stood at just 49.67%, a significant drop from the over 64.3% votes it got in 2007, the country’s Central Electoral Committee, the official agency in charge of election issues, said as it announced the preliminary results of the December 4 parliamentary election. The turnout stood at 60.2% of the registered voters.
Coming in second was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with almost 19.16% of the vote, giving it 92 seats, up from 57 seats in 2007. The Just Russia Party put up a superlative performance, gaining 13.22% of the vote, which is equivalent to 64 seats, up from 26, to clinch the third spot. The extravagant Liberal Democratic Party rounded the quartet with 11.66% of the vote or 56 seats, thus boosting its current number of State Duma representatives by 16 seats.
Commenting on the United Russia Party’s loss of ‘super constitutional majority,’ President Dmitry Medvedev, who headed the party's national list at the poll, said the State Duma election outcomes reflected the political landscape existing in the country. “I am very pleased that we will have a much more vigorous parliament, as the new configuration of the new State Duma will be more conducive to energetic debates. We all realize that the truth is only born out of debates, as no one has a monopoly over the truth.”
Meanwhile, Putin, the president-in-waiting, hailed his party’s result as ‘satisfactory,’ noting the fact that United Party was able to retain a simple majority, despite losing its much cherished ‘super constitutional majority’ will enable him and the government to work quietly and maintain the current political and economic stability in the country.
By Christopher Kenneth
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