Pro-Putin party heads for Russian parliamentary election win
Al Jazeera
United Russia party is set to win the polls after Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s allies barred from running in June.
Russians voted in the final stretch of a three-day parliamentary election that the governing party is expected to win after a sweeping crackdown that crushed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s movement and barred opponents from the ballot.
The expected win by the United Russia party in Sunday’s polls will be used by the Kremlin as proof of support for President Vladimir Putin despite malaise over years of faltering living standards.
The party that backs Russia’s 68-year-old leader faces a rating slump, state pollsters say, but remains more popular than its closest rivals on the ballot – the Communist Party and nationalist LDPR party – which often back the Kremlin.
