Overwhelming control over the Murmansk regional parliament

«For Russia, the Arctic and the people of the North». Such is the title of the regional party program of United Russia in Murmansk. With the results from the 18th September regional duma elections, the party will alone be able to follow up on its policies, without having to consult with the opposition.

The crushing victory in Sunday’s elections is likely to give the party 25 of the 32 seats in the regional legislative assembly. United Russia won 40,8 percent of the votes, which presumably gives it nine seats in the Duma. In addition, it won all the 16 single-mandate constituencies. 

In the new regional Duma, only seven seats will be occupied by other parties. The Liberal Democratic Party gets four mandates, while the Communist Party gets two and the Just Russia - one. 

The result is a blow to the political opposition, which in the previous Duma held at least 12 of the seats. 

The Communist Party got 12,6 percent of the votes, a decline of more than 10 percentage points from the elections in 2011. The A Just Russia got 10,6 percent, down from 21,6 percent in 2011.

Only the Liberal Democrats (LDPR), the party of controversial Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has some reason to cheer. The party got 21,8 percent of the votes, a 2,1 percent increase from 2011. 

A string of other political parties did not make it over the 5 percent threshold. The liberal Yabloko party got 2,88 percent of the votes, the Pensioners’ Party - 3,18 percent, the Civic Platform - 2,10 percent and Rodina - 2,05 percent, figures from the regional Election Commission show. The parties which did not make it into the assembly account for as much as 14,2 percent.

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Meanwhile, the United Russia boosted its results from 33,2 percent of the votes (2011) to 40,8 percent.

«We have comfortably won the elections on all levels», United Russia’a Party Secretary in Murmansk Sergey Dubovoy says in a press conference. 

The party also won the State Duma elections, and will send Aleksey Veller, the current Murmansk City Mayor, to the federal assembly in downtown Moscow.