The local parliamentary elections, widely considered a rehearsal for the December federal polls, were held in the Krasnoyarsk Territory Sunday, for the first time after it merged with two other Siberian territories from January. Just Russia, which is largely seen as a Kremlin-sponsored project to poach votes from the Communists, emerged third after the Communists and the winner of the vote, the pro-Kremlin United Russia.
"The second place that the Communist Party of Russia secured on party lists during the elections to the Krasnoyarsk Territory legislature directly results from the unprincipled cooperation between the Communist leadership and criminals," Sergei Mironov, the Just Russia leader, said.
But Mironov said the elections were satisfactory for Just Russia on the whole. He also said the party came third on party lists with 12.5%, but second in terms of single-constituency candidates.
"Our party practiced a new tactic in the Krasnoyarsk Territory by promoting candidates both on party lists and on a single-constituency basis," Mironov said, adding that four single-constituency candidates from the party had made it to parliament.
The Communist Party could not be reached for comment.
Konstantin Bocharov, the head of the local election commission, said quoting the local police that 17 minor violations had been discovered during the voting process, but that no official complaints had been made.
But Viktor Kuznetsov representing the Communist Party in the State Duma and Andrei Klykov, deputy head of the legal group of the party's central committee, said 36 separate violations had been registered by 9 p.m. Sunday (1 p.m. GMT).
