Moscow: Russian strongman Vladimir Putin on Monday suffered the worst election setback of his career as the majority of his ruling party was scythed back in polls marred by claims of violations . Despite failure of ruling United Russia to win even half the vote, monitors said polls had been slanted in its favour and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said there were "serious concerns" . While United Russia has managed to keep a much-reduced absolute majority, it appears Putin's once invincible popularity is on the wane ahead of his planned return to the Kremlin in 2012. United Russia obtained 238 seats in the 450-seat State Duma in Sunday's polls, down sharply from the 315 seats it won in the last polls in 2007, election commission chief Vladimir Churov told reporters . "The word 'Putin' has lost its magic force," concluded analyst Yury Korgunyuk of the INDEM research institute . "These elections brought him nothing good." This was the first time that Putin or his party had endured a decline in support in an election. United Russia has also lost the majority of twothirds required to pass any changes to the constitution. The party only managed to win 49.35% of the vote, down sharply from over 64% in 2007. However the opposition protested that United Russia's results would have been even worse in clean polls and the West joined Russian activists in raising alarm about mass cyber attacks on websites and persecution of monitors. "The contest was slanted in favour of the ruling party," said monitors led by the OSCE, adding there had been "frequent procedural violations" including indications of ballot stuffing.
