As the economy continued to improve, Putin moved to rein in the unpopular oligarchs, Putin's approval ratings stayed high and he won the 2004 presidential election with over 71% of the votes. The 2007 Duma elections saw United Russia gain 64.3% of the votes. The Communist Party became a distant second with 11.57% of the votes. Putin was the only name on United Russia's national list. United Russia also introduced tougher party, candidate and voter registration requirements and increased the election threshold from 5% to 7% for the 2007 elections.
