The RIA-Novosti news agency is today quoting election officials as saying a count of 95 percent of polling stations show Unified Russia won 47 percent of votes, the Communists 17 percent, and the liberal Yabloko party 11 percent.
Officials say turnout was 33 percent, above the 20 percent needed to validate the election for 35 seats on the capital's legislature, of which 20 are allotted on the basis of party lists.
Election officials say Unified Russia candidates are also leading in 14 of 15 single-mandate constituencies.
Yabloko party chief Grigorii Yavlinskii criticized the elections as "unequal and unfair."
Vladimir Zhirinovskii's nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia has apparently failed to reach the required 10 percent threshold.
(AFP/ITAR-TASS)
