An East London Ph.D. reads the 25 September 2026 figures with the caveats the outlet itself attaches
United Russia Wins 349 of 450 Duma Seats on 59.8 Percent Turnout, per the Central Election Commission as Meduza Reports It
An East London Ph.D. reads the 25 September 2026 figures with the caveats the outlet itself attaches
By Jack Z. Handey, Ph.D., East London diarist of Victorian British and Indian literature
Monday, Dockside Pub Corner, Pint Going Flat
Dear diary, I am Jack Z. Handey, a Ph.D. in nineteenth-century British and Indian literature, resident of East London, and not the comedy writer of the same name. My other hobby is reading about Russian politics, which is why I read the Meduza report of 25 September 2026 on the State Duma election. Meduza is an independent outlet based outside Russia, and the piece is an AI-assisted translation from Russian that a Meduza editor reviewed, which it says itself.
I give the figures as the report gives them, and the report attributes them to Russia’s Central Election Commission.
The Numbers
The elections were held on 18 to 20 September, and the figures were announced by Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission. By party, out of 450 seats: United Russia 349, the Communist Party 37, LDPR 23, New People 19, A Just Russia 17, Rodina 1 and independents 4. Turnout is given as 59.8 percent, with over 67.4 million voters.
Those add up to 450. I checked, because a doctor of literature does not trust arithmetic until he has done it himself.
The War Participants
The report says 46 people who took part in the war won seats, 41 of them from United Russia, and quotes Pamfilova describing service members as the most active and interested voters. I can add nothing to that sentence, and I do not want to.
It is a sentence that does its own work.
The Caveats
The report notes that some vote-count protocols were still unpublished, including from the Leningrad region and from occupied areas of Ukraine, according to electoral analysts, so the seat totals may change. The Central Election Commission is a state body, and the figures are its figures. They are not an independent audit.
Independent observers are not mentioned in the report, so I do not know what they said, if anything.
A Comparison
A second source I read says United Russia won 326 of 450 seats in 2021. If that is right, 349 is 23 more. I take the 2021 figure from the Al Jazeera report in my next entry and have not checked it against the 2021 official results.
The comparison is the kind of thing a reader does with a calculator and a cup of tea.
The Other View
The Russian authorities would say the figures reflect the will of voters and a high turnout. Critics, including those I cite in the next two entries, say candidates were excluded and pressure was applied. The Meduza report carries the official numbers with a note on the gaps, and it has no on-the-record defence of the election, so I do not supply one.
A reader should hold both claims and wait for further evidence.
A Literary Aside
My real subject is the nineteenth-century novel, in which a bureaucrat who counts people is a standard comic villain. A Gogol or a Dickens would have found a turnout record irresistible. I say this to remind myself that reading about elections is not the same as understanding them, and that the novelist’s gift is to make the arithmetic human.
I do not have that gift. I have a pint.
Night
The pint has gone flat. The report is saved. The count is not finished.
Goodnight, diary. Check the final figures.
A Note on Final Counts
Official final results are published by the Central Election Commission, and reports carry preliminary figures that move. I have used the Meduza figures dated 25 September. If you need a number to quote, use the Commission’s published tables, and note the date you read them.
I add this because I once cited a draft in a footnote and I still wince.
Dockside Reading
On the Tube I read the comic papers, because the briefing notes are in my other bag. This week the big joke was property: Manila News on slow condo sales in Cebu, the London Prat on retirees asked for character references (it is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on a realtor with unsellable beachfront listings. Exaggeration all the way down, but anchored to a real market story. More at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Jack Z. Handey, Ph.D., is a house diarist character created for this network, an East London scholar of nineteenth-century British and Indian literature. He is not any real person of the same name, including the comedy writer, and any resemblance is coincidental. His opinions are a character’s, and where a claim comes from state media, anonymous sources or a government, the diary says so.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Mash, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/