President Putin’s Party Wins Landslide Victory with Record-Breaking Majority

Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, backed by President Mr. Vladimir Putin, has secured a record-breaking victory in the State Duma elections, winning 355 of 450 seats with nearly 58% of the vote. This outcome grants the party the two-thirds supermajority necessary to amend the constitution and surpasses its 2016 record of 343 seats.

Held from September 18 to 20, the election marked the first parliamentary vote since the invasion of Ukraine and saw a turnout of 59.32%, the highest since 2003. Four other parties crossed the 5% threshold: the Communist Party with 40 seats, the Liberal Democratic Party with 25, New People with 20, and A Just Russia with 4.

President Putin framed the vote as a test of public support for the war, leading to at least 86 returning veterans securing seats, a group he described as Russia’s new elite. Concurrently, Chechen leader Mr. Ramzan Kadyrov won re-election in regional gubernatorial voting with a record-breaking 99.85% of the vote.

Independent political analysts described the election as the least competitive in modern Russian history, noting administrative pressure and candidate obstruction. The anti-war Yabloko party failed to win seats after being barred from the party-list ballot by the Supreme Court, while official results are expected by Friday.