Moscow ? The main pro-Kremlin party led by a large margin in Russia’s parliamentary elections Sunday, according to partial official results, putting President Vladimir Putin on the path to the solid majority he seeks to strengthen his hold on the country.

Greater might in the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament house, would make it easier for Putin to push through the sometimes unpopular market-oriented economic reforms he has promised and cut the bureaucracy that stifles Russian growth. It may also let him pass constitutional changes giving him a third term in office.

But Kremlin critics and opposition party leaders warned too much power for Putin would fuel a drift toward authoritarianism in a country still setting its course after seven decades of Soviet rule.

Turnout for the vote appeared lower than past elections, with many Russians disillusioned. Still, exit polls mirrored the partial count with a big win for Putin and his allies as he heads into a March presidential ballot that seems sure to hand him a second term.

With 46.93 percent of the official vote counted, United Russia — a party led by Cabinet ministers and packed with government bureaucrats — was ahead with 36.5 percent, more than twice as many votes as its closest contender, Central Election Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov said.

The Communist Party, universally considered United Russia’s chief competition, was second with 12.9 percent.

Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov dismissed the elections as a “disgusting show … that has nothing to do with democracy.”

The head of the party’s Moscow branch, Alexander Kuvayev, claimed widespread violations in the capital, including ballot-box stuffing and votes cast for dead people, and vowed the party would protest.

With a surprisingly strong showing, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia — which usually backs the Kremlin in parliament — had 12.8 percent of the vote so far.

A voter is deep in thought while holding ballots showing a variety of parties and candidates at a polling station in Moscow.

The elections for the 250-seat State Duma took place over 11 time zones from Siberia’s frozen wastes to war-wrecked Chechnya to the westernmost Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. The commission began releasing its partial results once polls closed across the country. The final count was expected this afternoon.

“The United Russia party has won, the president has won. That means that democratic reforms in Russia will continue. This is a serious victory we can rightly be proud of,” said Lyubov Sliska, a top figure in United Russia.

The leader of a pro-Western party, Union of Right Forces, expressed alarm at the strong showing of United Russia and its nationalist allies.

“The majority will belong to those who stand for a police state, for curtailing civic freedoms, for shutting down independent judicial authority,” Boris Nemtsov said in televised comments.

Analysts said United Russia and its allies were angling for a two-thirds majority required to make constitutional changes — a lever they could use to extend Putin’s term or let him run for a third term. Such a constitutional change would also need the approval of the pliant upper parliament house and two-thirds of Russia’s regional legislatures.

In the voting, 225 Duma seats are distributed proportionally among parties who get at least 5 percent of the vote. The other 225 seats are filled by the winners of individual district races, who may or may not be affiliated with a party. Elections were also held Sunday for the heads of 10 Russian regions and the city of Moscow.

Putin and his wife Lyudmila cast their ballots at a freshly renovated research institute in Moscow, an occasion he described as “the most important event of the day” — beating out the birth of eight puppies to the president’s favorite dog, which Putin said kept his family up half the night.