MONITORS DENOUNCE RUSSIA ELECTION!

More than 60% of the voters cast their ballots, officials say. Foreign observers have said that Russia's parliamentary election won by President Vladimir Putin's party was "not fair". The statement was made by a joint observer team from Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe.

With nearly 98% of ballots counted, Mr Putin's United Russia had 64.1% of Sunday's vote. Opposition claims of fraud were rejected by the electoral commission. Sunday's election "was not fair and failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections", the observers told a news conference in Moscow.

The vote affirmed the main idea - that Vladimir Putin is the national leader -Boris GryzlovLeader, United Russia

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The statement said the polls "took place in an atmosphere which seriously limited political competition" and that "there was not a level political playing field". "Frequent abuse of administrative resources, media coverage strongly in favour of the ruling party and an election code whose cumulative effect hindered political pluralism" had tainted the polls, the observers added.
The OSCE had abandoned its plans to send a large team of monitors, accusing Moscow of imposing curbs and delaying visas. Russia denied the claims. Only a much smaller group of members of the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly had attended the election, leaving some 330 foreign monitors covering nearly 100,000 polling stations.

With nearly all the ballots counted, United Russia had 64.1% of the vote. Mr Putin's party said the result showed he was "national leader". The opposition Communists and two other parties - Fair Russia and the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party were also poised to win seats in the 450-member lower chamber of the parliament, the Duma. The country's liberal opposition parties looked certain to fail to clear the 7% threshold needed to enter the Duma.

The Communists have said they will mount a legal challenge to the result, and will decide shortly whether to boycott the new parliament. "We do not trust these figures announced by the central elections commission and we will conduct a parallel count," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said. The independent Russian monitoring group Golos has reported various violations during the voting which it said amounted to "an organised campaign".

The chairman of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, has told Russian television he knew of "no serious violations in the course of polling day". However, United Russia's leader Boris Gryzlov has acknowledged there had been violations but dismissed them as insignificant.

Mr Putin is constitutionally obliged to stand down after his second term as president ends in March next year. The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says his party's win will enable him to continue wielding great influence in politics - even if he is no longer in high office. Mr Putin announced earlier this year that he may seek the office of prime minister after his presidential term ends.

If predictions are correct and the Liberal Democratic Party enters parliament, its candidate Andrei Lugovoi - who is wanted in the UK for the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko - will be guaranteed a seat. A parliamentary seat would grant him immunity from prosecution and extradition.

BBC NEWS REPORT.