Putin visits ruling party headquarters after it wins parliamentary poll

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the headquarters of the United Russia party and congratulated its members shortly after the early results and exit polls showed that it won the parliamentary election.

“It is hard, it is difficult, but people still vote for the United Russia. I think what does this tell us? First of all it tells us that people see that representatives of the United Russia, the leading political force, are really doing their best for the people,” Putin said addressing the ruling party members.

The ruling United Russia party won 44.5 percent in a parliamentary election on Sunday (September 18), an exit poll showed, slightly down on the last election but still enough to preserve the dominance of President Vladimir Putin’s allies in parliament.

The nationalist LDPR party was in second place with 15.3 percent, according to the exit poll by state-run pollster VTsIOM. The Communists were in third on 14.9 percent and the Just Russia party was fourth with 8.1 percent.

Liberal opposition parties, the only grouping openly critical of Putin, failed to get over the five percent threshold needed for party representation, the exit poll showed. Some of their candidates could still make it into parliament in constituency races.