MOSCOW (AP) - European election monitors said Monday that Russia's parliamentary ballot was unfair, hours after President Vladimir Putin's party swept 70 percent of the seats in the new legislature. The victory paves the way for Putin to remain Russia's de facto leader even after he leaves office next spring. Sunday's vote followed a tense Kremlin campaign that relied on a combination of persuasion and intimidation to ensure victory for the United Russia party and for Putin, who has used a flood of oil revenues to move his country into a more assertive position on the global stage.
Luc van den Brande, who headed the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said that officials had brought the "overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president" to bear on the campaign, and that "administrative resources" had been used to influence the outcome.
Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's parliamentary assembly, said it was "not a fair election."
The Kremlin and its allies hailed the vote as an overwhelming endorsement of Putin and his policies. "The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is the national leader, that the people support his course, and this course will continue," party leader and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov said after exit polls were announced.
The Bush administration called for a probe into voting irregularities. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called the election "the most irresponsible and dirty" in the post-Soviet era and party officials vowed to challenge the results.
Kimmo Kiljunen, vice president of the Office of Security and Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, called the elections "strange" and "problematic" because of reports of harassment of parties and confiscation of election materials. "There was the strange situation that the executive branch almost chose the legislative branch," Kiljunen said. "It is supposed to be the other way round."
With ballots from nearly 98 percent of precincts counted, United Russia was leading with 64.1 percent, while the Communists trailed with 11.6 percent, the Central Election Commission said. United Russia's victory would give it 315 seats, or 70 percent of the seats in Russia's 450-seat State Duma, the Central Election Commission said. The Communists would have just over 50 seats. Two other pro-Kremlin partiesthe nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and populist Just Russiaalso appeared to have made it into parliament, with 8.2 percent and 7.6 percent of the vote, respectively. Turnout was about 63 percent, up from 56 percent in the last parliamentary elections four years ago.
The Kremlin portrayed the election as a plebiscite on Putin's nearly eight years as presidentwith the promise that a major victory would allow him somehow to remain leader after his second term ends next year.
Putin is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third consecutive term, but he clearly wants to remain in power even though he has ruled out changing the constitution to allow him to run for another term as president. A movement has sprung up in recent weeks to urge him to become a "national leader," though it's not clear what that would mean.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and chief suspect in the poisoning death of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London last year, will serve as deputy from the Liberal Democratic Party. Russia has refused to hand Lugovoi over to Britain, and the Duma seat provides him with immunity from prosecution.
No other parties passed the 7 percent threshold for gaining seats in the legislature. Both opposition liberal parties were shut out, expected to win no more than 2 or 3 percent of the vote each.
Many Russians complained Sunday about being pressured to cast their ballots, with teachers, doctors and others saying they had been ordered by their bosses to vote. "People are being forced and threatened to vote; otherwise they won't get their salaries or pensions," said Boris Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party.
Dozens of voters reported being paid to cast ballots for United Russia, said Alexander Kynev, a political expert with election monitoring group Golos. In the town of Pestovo in the western Novgorod region, voters complained they were given ballots already filled out for United Russia, he said.
In Chechnya, where turnout was over 99 percent, witnesses reported seeing election authorities filling out and casting voter ballots in the suburbs of the regional capital, Grozny.
There was a tense, subdued mood at some polling stations. Yelena, a 32-year-old manager in St. Petersburg, refused to give her last name out of fear of official retaliation for voting for the liberal Yabloko party. "We live in a country with an absence of democracy and freedom of speech," she said.
The Kremlin appeared determined to engineer a resounding victory. But Putin, credited with rebuilding Russia after the poverty and uncertainty of the 1990s, has support from many Russians. "Today everything is clear and stable in life. The president's words always coincide with what he does. As for the other candidates we don't know yet where they would take us to," said Raisa Tretyakova, a 61-year-old pensioner in St. Petersburg.
The Bush administration called on Russia to investigate claims the vote was manipulated. "In the run-up to election day, we expressed our concern regarding the use of state administrative resources in support of United Russia, the bias of the state-owned or -influenced media in favor of United Russia, intimidation of political opposition, and the lack of equal opportunity encountered by opposition candidates and parties," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council.
The election monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, regarded in the West as the most authoritative election monitor, canceled plans to send observers.
British officials say police have cracked the murder-by-poison case of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, including the discovery of a "hot" teapot at London's Millennium Hotel with an off-the-charts reading for Polonium-210, the radioactive material used in the killing. A senior official tells ABC News the "hot" teapot remained in use at the hotel for several weeks after Litvinenko's death before being tested in the second week of December. The official said investigators were embarrassed at the oversight.