Experts sum up the results of Sunday's election in Russia in one word: continuity. "I don't expect much of a change in the work of the new Duma," said Pavel Medvedev, deputy chairman of the previous Duma's committee on budget and credit organizations and a member of the United Russia faction.

Early in the evening, exit polls from the All-Russia Public Opinion Center (VtsIOM) showed that four parties would clear the 7 percent barrier to make it into the next State Duma: United Russia, with 61 percent of the vote; the Communists, with 11.5 percent; the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) with 8.8 percent; and Just Russia, with 8.4 percent. VTsIOM interviewed voters at 1,200 polling stations in 57 regions. The agency put nationwide turnout at 59 percent. At midnight, the Central Election Commission released official numbers, stating that with 34 percent of the vote counted, United Russia had won just over 63 percent. The CEC gave the Communists 11.4 percent, LDPR - 9.5, and Just Russia, 7.5 percent.

United Russia's huge gains nearly doubled the 36.5 percent the party won in 2003.

Valery Fyodorov, the head of VTsIOM, speculated that United Russia will control 306 of the next Duma's 450 available seats, which means that the supporters of President Vladimir Putin will control two-thirds of the seats in the new Duma - a majority that will allow them to change the constitution, initiate impeachment procedures and do many other things that could stem the powers of a new president. This is a matter of crucial importance for Putin, who repeated many times during his campaign that he wanted United Russia to win in order to make sure his policies will be continued under a new presidential administration. The support of a strong United Russia faction will make it easier for Putin to step down in March 2008, clearing the way to his successor.

Even though United Russia is unlikely to win 66 percent of the vote, it will still be able to control two-thirds of the Duma.

"You should not forget that United Russia will get the 'bonus' seats from the parties that did not manage to get the 7 percent minimum required for the formation of a Duma faction," said Viktor Sheinis, a former Duma deputy from the Yabloko party and the author of Russia's 1993 law on parliamentary elections. "The seats of these parties will be distributed among those parties who received over 7 percent of the vote, and most of them will go to the United Russia."

Those parties receiving less than 7 percent of the vote and therefore shut out of the Duma are likely to include the Agrarian Party of Russia, with 2.5 percent of the vote; the liberal anti-Putin parties the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko with 1-2 percent of the vote each; as well as the little-known nationalist groups Party of Social Justice and Patriots of Russia with 0.2 and 0.9 percent, respectively. The smaller liberal parties Civic Force and the Democratic Party of Russia, which have the same pro-European and pro-business rhetoric as the traditional liberal parties, but never had much hope for getting into parliament, received only 1.1 percent of the vote (for Civic Force) and 0.2 percent (for the Democratic Party of Russia), according to preliminary returns.

"This campaign was characterized by a large number of spoiler parties, which were created by pro-Kremlin structures in a bid to chip off a percent or two from the opposition parties, both liberal and socialist ones," said Boris Romanov, an independent election analyst with Svobodnaya Mysl' magazine. "The Civic Force and the Democratic party were spoilers for the Union of Right Forces, while the Party of Social Justice clearly imitated the rhetoric of Just Russia without having the same desire to win. Social Justice leader Alexei Podberyozkin even told voters at a meeting that he did not advise them to vote for his party, praising United Russia as a better option."

However, it was not the list of losers that was the greatest surprise of the night after the elections. The real surprise was the small amount of votes which some of the long-established "losers" purportedly received and the relatively high results of some of their "spoilers." For example, the SPS, an old liberal party that tried to wage an aggressive PR campaign just before the vote with some of its leaders participating in protest actions with The Other Russia right before the election, received only 1.1 percent of the vote with 50 percent of the ballots counted, according to the CEC - exactly the same number as the Civic Force, a little-known newcomer registered only months before the vote.

"This is just incredible that a real party would get the same number of votes as its spoiler. The authorities are clearly trying to undermine SPS," commented Georgy Satarov, a leading expert with the InDem think tank and President Boris Yeltsin's representative to the Duma in the 1990s. "But this is just one more proof that someone knew the results of the vote in advance. The desired result can be achieved in many ways, and stuffing the ballot boxes is just the most primitive method. In places with a clannish structure of society this can be done by forcing strong local clans to pressure their members into voting for 'the party of power.' Reducing the number of votes cast for SPS can also be done in a subtle way."

However, no experts deny the fact that the election revealed massive support for United Russia.

Certainly this could be attributed to Putin's decision to head the party's list in October, while in 2003, Putin gave United Russia only indirect support, following Yeltsin's tradition of presidential non-partisanship.

"Putin risked a lot breaking this tradition," said Alexei Kiva, chief research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. "But somehow during the last eight years he came to be liked and loved by the people despite the fact that he did not quite fit the Russian archetype of a strong man, the so-called mouzhik, which Yeltsin fit much better. Russian politics is still centered on individuals, and Putin is certainly a strong individual."

However, some of the Russian political figures called Putin's victory a Pyrrhic one, since United Russia's will now be held responsible for any and all problems the country will face the in near future.

"The law of the degradation of monopolies is the same in both economy and politics," said Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's electric energy monopoly and the primary sponsor of SPS, whose defeat he declared to be a result of the democrats' failure to unite.

Chubais's words were echoed by other opposition leaders, who cried foul immediately after the announcement of the first results, citing irregularities during the vote and putting the blame for them squarely on Putin and United Russia.

The Communist Party's Gennady Zyuganov promised to lead 7 million people into the streets protesting irregularities during the vote. Both Yabloko's leader Grigory Yavlinsky and Chubais called irregularities during the vote "astounding." Even Sergei Mironov, leader of Just Russia, which is expected to get into the new Duma with little more than 7 percent of the vote, complained about "scenarios in the heads of some bureaucrats," which placed his party at a disadvantage during the vote. However, Just Russia's making it into the parliament at all is a huge success for Mironov, whose party seemed to lose the most by Putin's decision to head the United Russia list.

In Georgy Satarov's opinion, having Just Russia in the Duma leaves Putin more room to maneuver during the presidential elections, since parties in the Duma, unlike independent groups, can nominate presidential candidates without collecting the signatures of 1 million voters. "Since both United Russia and Just Russia can nominate their own candidates, Putin can organize a 'contest' between two leaders, giving this campaign new intrigue," Satarov said.