Putin's party wins Russian election

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MOSCOW, Dec 03 (AP): European election monitors said Monday that Russia's parliamentary ballot was unfair, hours after President Vladimir Putin's party swept 70 per cent of the seats in the new legislature.
The victory paves the way for Putin to remain Russia's de facto leader even after he leaves office next spring.
Sunday's vote followed a tense Kremlin campaign that relied on a combination of persuasion and intimidation to ensure victory for the United Russia party and for Putin, who has used a flood of oil revenues to move his country into a more assertive position on the global stage.
Luc van den Brande, who headed the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said that officials had brought the "overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president" to bear on the campaign, and that "administrative resources" had been used to influence the outcome.
Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's parliamentary assembly, said it was 'not a fair election'.
The Kremlin and its allies hailed the vote as an overwhelming endorsement of Putin and his policies.
"The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is the national leader, that the people support his course, and this course will continue," party leader and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov said after exit polls were announced.
The Bush administration called for a probe into voting irregularities. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called the election 'the most irresponsible and dirty' in the post-Soviet era and party officials vowed to challenge the results.
With ballots from nearly 98 per cent of precincts counted, United Russia was leading with 64.1 per cent, while the Communists trailed with 11.6 per cent, the Central Election Commission said.
Turnout was about 63 per cent, up from 56 per cent in the last parliamentary elections four years ago.
United Russia's victory would give it 315 seats, or 70 per cent of the seats in Russia's 450-seat State Duma, the Central Election Commission said. The Communists would have just over 50 seats.
The Kremlin portrayed the election as a plebiscite on Putin's nearly eight years as president - with the promise that a major victory would allow him somehow to remain leader after his second term ends next year.
Many Russians complained Sunday about being pressured to cast their ballots, with teachers, doctors and others saying they had been ordered by their bosses to vote.
Dozens of voters reported being paid to cast ballots for United Russia, said Alexander Kynev, a political expert with election monitoring group Golos. In the town of Pestovo in the western Novgorod region, voters complained they were given ballots already filled out for United Russia, he said.
In Chechnya, where turnout was over 99 per cent, witnesses reported seeing election authorities filling out and casting voter ballots in the suburbs of the regional capital, Grozny.
There was a tense, subdued mood at some polling stations. Yelena, a 32-year-old manager in St. Petersburg, refused to give her last name out of fear of official retaliation for voting for the liberal Yabloko party.
The Bush administration called on Russia to investigate claims the vote was manipulated.