Russia's Communist Party on Sunday said it planned to contest the results of parliamentary elections that handed a huge victory to President Vladimir Putin's party, citing massive violations. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov rejected the result and demanded that party monitors be allowed to verify the count, news agencies reported.
"We do not trust these figures announced by the central elections commission and we will conduct a parallel count," said Zyuganov.
"I am appealing to the authorities: Stop raping the entire country," Zyuganov was quoted by Interfax as saying. The head of the party's legal office, Vadim Solovyov, separately said some 300,000 party observers had recorded more than 10,000 election violations during voting for the 450 seats to the State Duma lower house of parliament.
"Our lawyers have already begun preparing a complaint to the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the elections," Solovyov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying.
"These are violations exceeding all acceptable norms," he said.
Putin's United Russia party won more than 60 percent of the vote in Russia's fifth parliamentary election since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, according to first partial results. Zyuganov earlier said the election had been "the toughest and least democratic" ever held in post-Soviet Russia, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
The opposition has accused the Kremlin of suppressing debate during the campaign, dominating state television, confiscating election leaflets and arresting activists.
The Communist party garnered 11.5 percent of the vote, according to results from just over 12 percent of ballots counted.
Two other parties - the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and A Just Russia party - were also set to win seats in the parliament.
Seven other parties failed to cross the seven-percent threshold to win votes, according to early results from the election commission.
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