DUSHANBE, December 5, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- Russians have voted in polls to decide the shape of the lower house, or State Duma, for the next five years.

Ms. Galiya Rabiyeva, deputy of Tajikistan’s lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of parliament, observed Russian’s parliamentary elections that were held on December 4.

Muhammadato Sultonov, a spokesman for the Majlisi Namoyandagon, says that during her stay in Moscow, MP Rabiyeva also held meetings with representatives of Tajik Diaspora and Tajik labor migrants working in the Russian Federation.

According to the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER), two representatives of the CCER, namely Olim Yormatov and Parvina Rasoulova also monitored the parliamentary elections in Russia.

Legislative elections were held in the Russian Federation on December 4, 2011.  The 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia (the legislature) were at stake.

The threshold for eligibility to win seats is 7.0 percent.  Party which receive between 5.0 and 6.0 percent gets 1 seat in Duma and between 6.0 and 7.0 percent gets 2 seats.

All 7 registered political parties were approved to participate in the elections.  Parties which were present in State Duma (United Russia, Communist Party, Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia) were automatically eligible to participate in the elections.  Other parties were to present at least 150.000 signatures (with maximum 5000 signatures per region) to Electoral Commission before October 19.

The Central Electoral Commission reported yesterday night that with 80.16 percent of the vote counted the ruling United Russia party is leading with 50.09 percent, a significant drop from the 64.3 percent the party won in 2007.

The Communist Party is running second with 19.21 percent, followed by the center-left A Just Russia, a onetime pro-Kremlin party that has gone into opposition, which had 12.97 percent.  Vladimir Zhirinovsky''s nationalist Liberal Democrats were running fourth with 11.73 percent.