Russia. Nearly two-thirds of eligible voters went to the polls. As expected, the Communists won an excellent result with 113 out of 450 seats, while Edisntvo had 73, and Luzhkov-Primakov had 77. In the end, Putin managed to secure a majority thanks to the support of the Union of Right Forces. Putin had already received notification from Yeltsin five days earlier that Putin would become interim President before Yeltsin’s term expired in June 2000. Yeltsin wanted to catch his opponents by surprise.
