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Poll shows Putin party on 67 pct before December 2 vote
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party will win an overwhelming majority of seats in parliamentary elections next month, according to a poll by the independent Levada Centre published on Friday.
Levada's nationwide poll ahead of the December 2 elections for the lower house of parliament (State Duma) gave United Russia 67 percent support, down one percentage point on last month.
"United Russia's lead is so great that these elections are reminiscent of Soviet elections, where there was no alternative and as far as the electorate was concerned, the polls are pre-ordained," Lev Gudkov of the Levada Centre told a news conference.
The biggest opposition party, the Communists, scored 14 percent in the poll.
No other party is likely to pass the 7 percent threshold required for representation in the 450-seat Duma, according to the poll.
The threshold was raised from 4 percent in the previous election, part of a set of election changes which political analysts say will make it impossible in practice for independents and pro-Western parties to win seats this time.
Support for the third-placed political party, the nationalist LDPR, was unchanged on last month at 6 percent.
In fourth place was a second pro-Kremlin bloc, Fair Russia, with 4 percent.
Both the main anti-Kremlin liberal parties, Yabloko and SPS, polled below 3 percent.
Levada estimated turnout for the December parliamentary elections would be 63 percent.
The poll was based on interviews with 1,600 people carried out between November 9-13 at 100 venues in 46 regions and has a 1.5 percent margin of error.
The findings broadly mirrored the results of two other opinion polls this week from Russian pollsters VTsIOM and FOM.
These both predicted United Russia would dominate the next parliament, with the Communists and the LDPR trailing well behind in second and third place respectively.
The two earlier polls anticipated United Russia support at 53-55 percent but forecast that the third-placed LDPR would scrape past the 7 percent threshold and secure seats.
(Writing by Conor Sweeney; editedby Ralph Boulton)
