United Russia Wins, Nears Record 355 Duma Seats
Was Russia's vote a genuine election with real competition or a Kremlin-scripted result with the opposition erased from the ballot?
Above: A man votes in Russia's parliamentary election at a polling station in Shishkin Les, Moscow, on Sept. 19. Image credit: Igor Ivanko/AFP/Getty Images
The Spin
Anti-Russia narrative
Calling this an election insults the word. The one party that dared oppose the war, Yabloko, got erased from the ballot by the Supreme Court twelve days after registering, with two of its deputy leaders sitting in prison and candidates jailed or barred. A record 355 seats for United Russia proves nothing except that a vote with no real choice delivers whatever the Kremlin orders.
Pro-Russia narrative
More than 62 million Russians turned out and handed United Russia a massive victory while cyberattackers hammered the voting infrastructure with over 1,000 waves of DDoS assaults. Ten parties competed, four cleared the threshold and international observers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization found no violations, calling the vote transparent and credible.
