Moscow - The governing United Russia party won local elections in the Russian capital Moscow by a wide margin, according to official results reported Monday.

The incumbent party won 66.3 of the vote, while the Communist party with 13.3 per cent of the vote was the only other party to make it into Moscow's 35-seat duma (council), the Interfax news agency said, citing election officials.

The liberal party Yabloko, which lost its two seats in the duma, condemned 17-year reigning mayor Yury Luzhkov for carrying out "one of the all-time election frauds in Russia's recent history."

President Dmitry Medvedev however said that as far as he could see there have been no major electoral breaches in the "convincing victory" by United Russia.

A spokesman for the Yabloko party, which failed to reach the 7 per cent hurdle in Europe's largest city, announced that the party would appeal the election.

The Moscow election is of considerable importance as the city commands a budget of about 35.4 billion dollars, about the same as the annual budget for the entire country of Ukraine.

Voter participation was reported at around 35 per cent.

There were complaints of election fraud and obstruction of opposition parties around Russia, which saw 30 million voters in 75 municipal elections go to the polls Sunday.

Elections were held for the first time in Chechnya and other autonomous republics in the troubled Caucasus region, with little violence reported.

Security was tight across Russia, with about 20,000 security personnel deployed in Moscow alone. (dpa)