Pro-Kremlin Party gains ground despite controversies in election

(Vatican Radio) The ruling United Russia party was expected to win even greater dominance over the Russian lower house in parliamentary elections, though Sunday's ballot has been overshadowed by reports of vote-rigging and apathy. 

The vote was for the first time held in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, sparking protests. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:

In front of reporters, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to appear confident as he cast his ballot in Moscow at a polling station set up in Russia's Academy of Science. 

Yet, it remained unclear how many others would bother to cast ballots amid reported widespread apathy among Russia's 110 million registered voters at a time of economic difficulties. 

Russia is also facing international tensions over its involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. 

Yet Russia's Foreign Ministry fought back this weekend, condemning U.S.-led airstrikes on Syrian Army forces, calling them "on the boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance" with Islamic State militants. 

The incident, which Russia said killed 62 Syrian soldiers, sparked an angry exchange between diplomats at the United Nations, and threatened to further unravel a fragile cease-fire that went into effect on September 12 aimed at allowing humanitarian assistance into besieged areas. 

OPPOSITION STRUGGLING

Amid all these tensions, Russia's opposition says it has been struggling to gain ground in part because most media are controlled by the state. And in some cases opposition leaders have been shot or detained.     

With few voices expressing public dissent over domestic and international policies, opinion polls quoted by Kremlin-run media already claimed that the 63-year-old Putin has a personal approval rating of around 80 percent after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister.

Independent observers predict that the pro-Putin United Russia party will win 
even greater dominance in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, where it already occupies more than half of the 450 available seats. 

Three other largely cooperative parties are also expected to be re-elected. 

However Russia's election commission warned that election results in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there are confirmed.

A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to come to polling stations. Violations were also reported in other regions including in Moscow.  

VOTE RIGGING

Russian officials are concerned that widespread allegations of vote rigging could spark protests similar to the massive demonstrations after elections in 2011. There were other controversies as well. For the first time, elections were held in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. But the United States has already said it will not recognize voting in the peninsula.

It also sparked tensions in Ukraine's capital Kiev where dozens of right-wing protesters gathered around the Russian embassy, where a voting station was set up. At least one demonstrator was detained in a scuffle with police.