The ballots in Russia are still being counted, but the story was told long before the first box was opened. With 75.31 percent of protocols processed, United Russia holds 57.48 percent of the vote for the State Duma. The Communist Party is second on 14.03 percent, behind it the Liberal Democratic Party on 8.75, New People on 8.01, and A Just Russia barely clinging above the threshold with 5.01 percent.

That is a figure that looks like a result and is in fact a confirmation. Five parties enter parliament, and four of them have spent years voting the way they are expected to. Opposition in the Russian parliament exists as furniture - it is needed so you can see the room is full.

The second half of the electoral system is more interesting. Out of 225 single-mandate districts, United Russia candidates lead in 208. The Communists, A Just Russia and independent candidates lead in four each, the LDPR in two, and Rodina in one. Half the Duma is allocated proportionally by party list, the other half is won district by district - and that is exactly where a majority stops being a majority and becomes a monopoly.

Voting ran for three days, from 18 to 20 September, with electronic voting in part of the country. Turnout, according to preliminary figures, passed 55 percent. The Central Election Commission announced that final results will not be published before 25 September, so the percentages and the distribution of seats can theoretically still change.

Theoretically. Nobody in Moscow is waiting for 25 September to find out who holds the Duma. Election night in countries of this type does not exist to reveal the winner, but to measure by how much they will win - and whether that number is convincing enough for the outside world while modest enough not to look drawn on.

The Balkans knows this scene by heart. A parliament of five parties that sounds like pluralism, an election commission counting slowly and calmly, and a result that surprises nobody because everybody knew it in advance. The difference is in the size of the state, not in the logic of the process.

The question that remains is not who won the Duma. The question is what a parliament without the power to say "no" even means - and how long a state can wage a war alongside an institution that exists only to confirm a decision taken somewhere else.