UPDATE 2-Kremlin party cements grip in local Russian polls

* Preliminary results give ruling party big wins

* Communists and nationalists allege widespread cheating

* Independent monitors list violations

MOSCOW, March 2 - Russia's ruling party cemented its grip on elected posts with big victories in local elections on Monday despite presiding over a deepening economic crisis, but the opposition complained of widespread cheating.

Political analysts said the level of complaints about the campaign and violations of electoral rules made it hard to draw conclusions from the results of Sunday's elections for town and city councils, mayors and nine regional parliaments.

"The political field has been securely cleansed of any relevant opposition," Moscow Carnegie Centre analyst Maria Lipman said. "If the crisis is going to undermine this achievement, it has not happened yet."

Russia's main non-governmental election monitor Golos said authorities in several regions had handed out discount shopping cards and lottery tickets to entice citizens to vote for the United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The main opposition Communists had been best placed to profit from rising discontent but the results gave them a distant second place in most regions and third in others.

Preliminary results on Monday showed United Russia leading by big margins in all nine elections to regional parliaments. Overall turnout was 55.7 percent, up slightly on the last comparable vote.

Support for United Russia ranged from 42.5 percent in the Arctic Nenets district to 79.5 percent in the wealthy and mainly Muslim republic of Tatarstan. United Russia candidates also led in nine of ten mayoral elections, preliminary results showed.

The election was the first since the economic crisis hit Russia late last year. Two million people have lost their jobs, the rouble has been devalued and many salaries cut, and the Kremlin is concerned the economic hardship will fuel protests.

OPPOSITION CRIES FOUL

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said the official figures were between 5 and 15 percent below his party's own tallies of voting. "It was the dirtiest of recent election campaigns," he said.

There was "bare-faced arm-twisting" of voters, said Sergei Ivanov, a parliamentarian with the right-wing LDPR party.

Central Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov, a former colleague of Putin's who has said in a newspaper interview that "Putin is always right", insisted that most reported violations would not stand up to scrutiny.

"At best one percent of all complaints are justified," he told Reuters. "As a rule they do not affect the results."

Churov denied his relationship with Putin clouded his judgement. "I am not Putin's relative and I am not directly answerable to him," he said.

United Russia said the opposition had broken electoral rules with bribes to voters which included adulterated cheap wine and chocolate which had passed its sell-by date.

But in a report released Monday, Golos said most violations had benefited the party of power.

In Tatarstan, a candidate was beaten by police as he tried to observe a vote count, Golos' report said. In another reported incident, assailants beat two journalists monitoring elections in a town outside Moscow, confiscating their cameras.

Sergei Obukhov, a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee, said workers in Bryansk were forced to vote at their workplace in polling stations controlled by the authorities

Independent commentator Yulia Latynina said the polls were too flawed to be read as a vote of confidence in the government's handling of the economic crisis.

"I honestly don't know what the people think right now, but I am certain the results of these elections do not reflect what they think."

United Russia was created during Putin's 2000-2008 presidential terms as the Kremlin's main political machine. It already dominates national and regional parliaments, governors and mayors and receives lavish coverage in state media.

About 20 million Russians out of a population of 142 million were eligible to vote in Sunday's elections, which involved some 3,600 separate races.

The two biggest cities, Moscow and St Petersburg, did not vote. Putin and Medvedev took no active part in campaigning.