Re-Elected
The United Russia party won an unprecedented 343 out of 450 seats in the lower chamber of the Russian parliament. More than two hundred of those seats were secured according to the first-past-the-post system. Other parties represented in parliament saw their number of seats cut by 2-4 times. Unprecedentedly low voter turnout (especially in the capital cities) and division among opposition leaders resulted in the complete failure of all opposition candidates in the national election. None managed to pass the 3% threshold or win even a single seat in the chamber.
After five years of being responsible for the country’s domestic politics and running Putin’s presidential campaign before that, Vyacheslav Volodin was offered the post as speaker of the Russian Parliament’s lower chamber. This means the parliament will play a greater role in national politics, and that there will be changes in how domestic politics are organized in general.
Russian government officials continue to deny any connection between the tragedy of the MH17 crash and the country’s military or the Donetsk rebels. State-controlled organizations keep coming up with alternative explanations of the tragedy, none of which seem compelling.
The Russian public cannot even consider the possibility of the country’s military being connected to the tragedy of MH17. More Russians believe that Western special services or unknown terrorists shot the plane down than Donetsk rebels, not to mention the army.
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