Why the Outcome of Russia's First Parliamentary Elections in Years Is All But Assured

Russia is just one day into three-day elections that will determine the makeup of the lower house of the country’s parliament, the State Duma. But the outcome of the vote has been all but guaranteed since before the first ballots were cast.The elections, the first parliamentary vote the country has held since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are widely expected to result in the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party maintaining its overwhelming dominance in the Duma. The party currently holds 310 of the 450 seats in the chamber, giving it a supermajority and the power to make major legislative decisions without the input of other parties. It needs to keep at least 300 seats to retain that supermajority. Four other political parties are also expected to be represented in the Duma following the election, all of which generally vote in line with United Russia and support the war in Ukraine. They are the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the A Just Russia party, and the New People party. Democracy watchdogs and foreign governments have denounced Russia’s elections as being neither free nor fair. Russian officials have rejected such claims i...