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#22 - JRL 2007-214 - JRL Home
Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
October 11, 2007
An Expat's Guide to the Duma Elections
By Anna Arutunyan and Kirill Bessonov

In case you haven't noticed, the race is on for parliamentary elections. On Dec. 2, Russians will head to the polls to vote on the State Duma, the nation's lower house of parliament. For a foreigner, the process looks baffling - and it is. There is much talk in the Western press about why Russia's democracy doesn't work well, but not much on how it actually works. Fortunately, if you're a foreigner, you won't have to vote.

This week the Central Elections Committee announced how many people from each party were running for deputy. Nearly 6,000 contestants will be vying for 450 deputy seats. As of this week, there are 15 parties that comply with Russia's electoral law. Out of them, 12 parties have submitted their lists of members.

Just to clarify: we're talking about the parliamentary elections (the lower house), not the presidential elections, which will take place in March. If in the presidential elections all that matters is who wins, the whole point of factions in parliament is how many seats each party gets. This will determine what their voting potential will be when it comes down to laying down the law.

This year in order to make it into the legislative body, a party must get at least seven percent of the vote. Single-constituency tickets are gone from the ballots - now there is a federal part of the ticket and a district part for Russia's 80 electoral districts. Parties get seats in the Duma in proportion with the total number of collected votes. If a party gets the minimum seven percent of the vote, it will fill 35 seats. Deputies will be chosen first from the federal part of the ticket, and then, if there's space left, starting from the most heavily populated districts. If a party gets a majority of seats, they will be filled by several people from each district ticket - the first in line, second in line, and so on.

From now until two weeks from Christmas, all eyes will be on campaigning factions and their internal politics. A few perennial favorites from past elections will take part, but there are a few notable newcomers as well. To see what all the fuss is about, to the right is a look at the parties, what they stand for, and their chances according to the latest surveys. N

WHO'S WHO

According to a recent forecast from the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, only four political parties in the country have good chances to surpass the seven percent threshold. These are United Russia, the Communist Party, A Just Russia and the Liberal-Democratic Party.

The survey, published by the RIA-Novosti news agency in early September, predicted that United Russia would most likely get 57 percent of the votes (257 seats in the State Duma). The Communists were expected to get 18 percent (81 seats), A Just Russia was heading towards 14 percent (64 seats) and the LDPR was expected to get 11 percent of the votes (48 seats). Liberal parties SPS and Yabloko were expected to get 4.4 and 2.7 percent of the votes.

The United Russia Party (Yedinaya Rossiya) was founded in December 2001 as a merger of three political parties -Unity, Fatherland and All Russia. The party positioned itself as the backers of President Vladimir Putin's policy and, riding on Putin's huge popularity, got 120 seats in the State Duma of the fourth calling. The name United Russia was adopted at the party congress in November 2005. In this year's campaign, United Russia is sticking to the same strategy, saying that their objective is to implement Putin's Plan, which they call "the victory of Russia." Vladimir Putin agreed on Oct. 1 to head the United Russia elections list and after that the party congress decided that Putin will be the only person in the federal list. The United Russia is headed by the State Duma chairman Boris Gryzlov. The party has over 1 million members.

A Just Russia was founded in October 2006 as a merger of the nationalist party Rodina (Motherland), the Russian Party of Pensioners and the Russian Party of Life. Just as United Russia, A Just Russia proclaimed the support of Vladimir Putin's course as its political program, but said it was opposing United Russia's effective monopoly on the political field. A Just Russia was the first political party to receive an official note of congratulation from Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The party is headed by Sergei Mironov, the chairman of the upper house of the Russian Parliament.

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) was founded in 1989 as a nationalist and populist party. Since its foundation, the LDPR has been headed by its eccentric leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The program of the party includes the reunification of all former Soviet republics in the Russian Empire and support of the Russian-speaking population in other countries. LDPR included in its federal list a former KGB operative Andrei Lugovoi, a man wanted in the UK over charges of polonium poisoning of Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko. The estimated number of LDPR members runs at 500,000.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) was founded in 1993 and is a successor to the Russian branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). It has a clear leftist program: protection of the working class and a larger state role in the economy. KPRF got the majority of seats in the State Duma of the second and the third calling in the 1990s, but lost to United Russia in 2003, when the newly-created Rodina attracted some of its nationalist-leaning voters. Since its foundation, KPRF has been headed by a former CPSU official, Gennady Zyuganov. The party has over 180,000 members.

Some other parties that may participate in parliamentary elections: The Democratic Party of Russia, The Party of Peace and Unity, The Union of Right Forces, Yabloko.