President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has won its biggest majority yet in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Final results announced on Friday, September 25, by Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova give the party 349 of 450 seats after three days of voting from September 18 to 20.
The new Duma
- United Russia: 349 seats (up from 324 won in 2021).
- Communist Party (KPRF): 37 seats.
- LDPR: 23 seats.
- New People: 19 seats.
- A Just Russia: 17 seats.
- Rodina: 1 seat, plus 4 independents.
Turnout was officially 59.8%, with more than 67 million people voting. Half of the seats are allocated by party lists and half in single-member districts, where United Russia candidates won most races. In early counting the party took close to 58% of the list vote, well above its 2021 share.
War veterans in parliament
Forty-six of the new deputies are veterans of what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, 41 of them elected for United Russia. The Kremlin has promoted former soldiers as a new political elite, and their arrival in the Duma underlines how central the war has become to Russian politics.
Why critics reject the result
Independent observers had little access, and most anti-war candidates were kept off the ballot. Electronic voting, used by millions of people in dozens of regions, has been criticised by opposition groups as impossible to verify. Voting was also organised in Ukrainian regions that Russia occupies and claims to have annexed, which Ukraine and most of the world do not recognise; Kyiv called the vote there illegal. The commission acknowledged that some count records, including from occupied areas, had not yet been published when results were announced.
The parties that won seats alongside United Russia generally support the Kremlin’s main policies, so the new Duma is expected to approve the government’s agenda with little resistance.
Why it matters
The Duma election is the last national vote before the 2030 presidential election. A larger majority gives the Kremlin room to change laws, and even the constitution, quickly. For the outside world, the result offers little sign that domestic politics will push Moscow towards a different course on the war.