United Russia may garner up to 33% of the votes

At the forthcoming State Duma elections the United Russia party is expected to garner the majority of votes, said Nikolai Petrov, head of the Centre for Political and Geographic Research and an expert of Moscow's Carnegie Centre.

According to him, the party can gain 30-32% of seats at the upcoming December 7th parliamentary elections. Petrov said this Tuesday at a press conference in RIA Novosti's head office.

The expert underscored that the Communist Party was rated second after the United Russia with the forecast 25% of the votes. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) will possibly enjoy 7-9 % of the votes, which is a lot for it.

The fourth and fifth positions (5-6%) will most likely be shared by the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko.

The People's Party of Gennady Raikov, the expert said, is forecast to gather merely 3%. Therefore candidates from single-mandate districts of the party will merely have 20 seats in parliament, he thinks.

Nearly the same is true about the Rodina (Fatherland) bloc of Sergei Glazyev and Dmitry Rogozin, Petrov said.

According to the Centre of Political and Geographic Research, up to 60% of voters are expected to participate in the elections, with nearly 10% of them voting against all candidates.