Duma Voting Concludes With United Russia Set to Retain Super Majority

LOCAL NEWS

• State Duma voting concludes with Putin's United Russia party retaining its majority after three days of voting and a notable crackdown on opposition participation.
  • With 75% of the votes counted UR is ahead by 49% of the vote, Communist party 21.36%, Liberal Democratic party of Russia 8.07%, a Just Russia 7.62% & New People 5.96%. although this is a notable win, it falls short of the 2016 vote where UR claimed 54% of the vote.
  • This should result in ~314 seats of 450 vs 334 seats in 2016
• Upper House says sanctions may be imposed on the countries where cyberattacks on Duma elections originated from targeting the election commission's website. Said countries will be called upon to explain themselves as the level of interference was "unprecedented"
• Central Election commission confirms 12 cases of ballot stuffing in 8 regions: Adygea, Kalmykia, North Ossetia, Bryansk, Ivanovo, Kemarovo & Moscow. Notes all of those ballots were declared invalid and probes are underway – particularly involving law enforcement
• U.S. Department of Commerce has completed the procedure for collecting comments as part of the consideration of a request to change the status of the Russian economy from market to non-market.
  • US fertilizer producers pressed the motion, which categorises Russia by the same non-market criteria as china. Russia pushed back against this, saying it violated WTO norms
• Ministry of Finance raised the issue of increasing the share of net profit of state banks allocated to dividends from 50% to 75%. They noticed that credit organizations are allocating a lot of funds for the acquisition of non-core assets, including within ecosystems.
  • The ministry believes that money will be more useful in the budget. Such a step will not affect the stability of state-owned banks, but will limit their growth potential, experts say