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Putin's Party Wins By Landslide In Russian Vote

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By CLIFFORD J. LEVY, The New York Times

Published: December 3, 2007

Updated: 12/03/2007 01:11 am

MOSCOW - With President Vladimir V. Putin's opponents persistently hobbled by the Kremlin, his party on Sunday swept to the kind of landslide long predicted for the parliamentary elections.

Yet the results, while a triumph for Putin, also usher in a new era of political instability for Russia. Even as Putin has been accumulating power and popularity, he has been stirring deep uncertainty about his intentions, making it all but impossible to answer a fundamental question about Russia's future: Come next spring, who will be in charge?

Yielding to the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms, Putin has said he will not be a candidate for president in March. But he has declared that he will retain significant influence, whether as prime minister; leader of his party, United Russia; or a vague role described here as "father of the nation."

To some degree at least, the results on Sunday certainly reflect Russian voter satisfaction with what Putin regards as his biggest achievement - restoring the economic strength and international status of a Russia laid low by the disarray of the 1990s after the fall of Communism. But Putin's aides acknowledge the party's showing has done nothing to clarify the leadership transition when Putin's term expires.

The difficulty has arisen in large part because of an apparent contradiction in his political stance in recent months. He turned Sunday's election into a referendum on his leadership, so much so that billboards festooned over Moscow and other big cities urged people to vote "For Putin!" not emphasizing United Russia.

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