Pro-Kremlin party leading vote after crackdown
Updated President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party was ahead with nearly 40% of the vote, early results showed Sunday, after a three-day election that followed an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition. With just more than 10% of the vote counted, United Russia had taken 39.2% , according to results released by the election commission. The Communists were second with 24.7%, fllowed by the nationalist LDPR party with 9.5%. Video: AFP In the last elections to the lower house State Duma in 2016, United Russia received 54.2% of the vote and the Communists 13.3%. The vote came in the wake of a clampdown this year that saw Putin's best-known domestic foe Alexei Navalny jailed and his organisations banned as "extremist". In the lead-up to the vote, all of Navalny's top allies were arrested or fled the country, with anyone associated with his groups kept from running. Authorities also took drastic measures to deter Navalny's "Smart Voting" campaign, which guided voters on which candidates to support to have the best hope of denying Kremlin-aligned politicians a seat. In this election, most of its voting list consisted of Communist Party candidates. Kremlin 'blackmail' The...