Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin hailed his ruling party’s victory in regional elections as a vote of confidence in his government, but opponents claimed the balloting was marred by fraud.
United Russia, the party Mr Putin has used as an instrument of power since his 2000 to 2008 presidency, outpolled rivals in contests on Sunday for legislatures in 12 regions from the Bering Strait to the Baltic Sea, election officials said.
Mr Putin suggested that United Russia had passed its last big test ahead of December parliamentary elections and a March 2012 vote in which he has hinted he will return to the presidency or endorse incumbent Dmitry Medvedev for a second term.
“I think they are more than satisfactory for United Russia,” Mr Putin said of the results. “First of all, because United Russia won in all regions,” he told reporters.
Mr Putin shrugged off strong showings by United Russia’s rivals in several regions, which pointed to growing concern over economic troubles and discontent with the entrenched ruling party.
The results reflected “confidence in the authorities as a whole”, said Mr Putin, who remains Russia’s paramount leader after steering Mr Medvedev into the Kremlin in 2008, when he faced a constitutional bar on a third consecutive term.
Mr Putin, who is much more popular than United Russia, helped the party win votes in 2007 parliamentary elections by topping its candidate list and became its leader after shifting from the presidency to the prime minister’s post in 2008.
Mr Putin made campaign-style appearances at regional party conferences in the months before Sunday’s vote, lavishing attention on far-flung provinces.
Rivals accused United Russia of using its control over the levers of power to conduct an unfair campaign and boost its vote count. The leader of the Communist Party, United Russia’s closest competitor, called the elections a “disgrace”.
The results appeared unlikely to force major changes in planning by Mr Putin, who tightened control over the electoral system as president with legislation critics say sharply curtailed democracy.
United Russia won between 36 per cent and 72 per cent of voting by party list for the regional legislatures, according to Central Election Commission data based on nearly complete returns.
In many cases, the dominant party fared worse than in the 2007 national parliamentary voting but better than in the last regional votes in the same provinces, most of them in 2006.
Rivals accused United Russia of abusing its power throughout Russia’s provinces to boost its vote count and claimed violations on election day, including multiple voting and coercion of vulnerable voters such as students and soldiers.
“We encountered all the dirty tactics invented in the last 20 years, which are in the arsenal of United Russia,” said communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. “We haven’t seen such a disgrace in a long time.”
The communists made strong showings in poor central Russian regions where jobs are scarce and resentment of the wealth concentrated in Moscow runs high.