MOSCOW — Heeding their popular president's ominous warnings that Russia's future dangled in the balance, voters flocked to the polls Sunday to cast ballots in an unorthodox parliamentary election.
Bombarded with the message that they should treat the election as a referendum on President Vladimir V. Putin's rule, voters turned out in large numbers, with lines forming at some polling stations as people waited for their chance at the ballot box. As expected, Putin's United Russia party swept up more than 60% of the vote, according to early estimates.
The surge of electoral participation, with turnout reportedly topping 60%, reflected Putin's aggressive campaign to get out the vote.
"The president is trying to establish some kind of order in this country," said Yulia Mikhailova, 47, a disabled Muscovite who limped to the polls with the help of her cane. "He's a person who has turned Russia into a country to be reckoned with."
Furious opposition leaders called Sunday's election the least democratic since the collapse of the Soviet Union and vowed to challenge the results in court.
"This will beat all records in modern Russian history for irregularities," former chess champion and prominent opposition leader Garry Kasparov said. "Putin has been destroying democracy, poisoning it for the last eight years."
Because the vote takes place at a moment of swelling national uncertainty over the country's political future, its importance mushroomed far beyond seating lawmakers in an assuredly pro-Kremlin legislature. Putin's second term ends next year, and under the constitution he cannot seek a third consecutive term.
Yet by turning the elections into a one-man popularity contest, the president is laying the groundwork for a popular mandate that will help him keep a grip on power, analysts say. Putin could use triumph at the polls to go on to serve as prime minister or party chief, or could encourage his party to amend the constitution so that he can stay on as president. However, Putin has repeatedly denied any plans to remain president after his term expires.
Votes were still being tallied late Sunday when United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov told Russian television that his party now had the right to "ensure the succession of state policy for the next four years."
"De facto, they came to the referendum to show support for the course of our president," he said.
