Russia’s ruling United Russia party, which is gaining slightly less than half of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, will need to enter a coalition with other parties on some issues, experts told RIA Novosti.
With over 52 percent of the ballots counted, United Russia has 49.68 percent, the Communist Party, 19.70 percent, the moderate A Just Russia got 12.91 percent and the nationalist Liberal Democrats 12.18 percent. Voter turnout was above 50 percent.
Earlier President Dmitry Medvedev said the ruling party will anyway have to join bloc agreements with other parties in the State Duma with account for a more complex structure of the lower house of parliament, adding that this is “normal, this is what parliamentarianism and democracy mean.”
A Just Russia chairman Nikolai Levichev said his party could form a coalition with the Communists and United Russia on some issues. The head of the Liberal Democrats (LDPR) faction in the State Duma, Igor Lebedev, said a coalition with United Russia was possible but only on equal terms.
First deputy chairman of the Communist Party’s (KPRF) central committee, Ivan Melnikov, said his party will not form any kind of coalition with United Russia unless the ruling party utterly reconsiders its positions.
Mikhail Remizov, president of the Strategy 2020 foundation, told RIA Novosti that some issues may force United Russia to seek agreement with other political parties.
“Coalitions will be situational. I don’t think the new parliament will have anything like a ruling coalition,” he said.
Another expert, president of the fund for research of democracy problems, Maxim Grigoryev, said there will be no permanent coalition. He said A Just Russia and LDPR are the most likely partners for United Russia.
He said no one had thought United Russia would receive a constitutional majority in the new Duma (over two-thirds of the vote).
“Russia’s political system is becoming more modern, adequate, dynamic. I think the quality of political decisions will increase,” he said.
Political scientist Pavel Danilin said United Russia will not need to form a coalition with others.
“If constitutional amendments are required, United Russia will have to enter a coalition, but in other cases, United Russia has enough mandates in a simple majority to approve necessary laws,” he told RIA Novosti.