Category Archives: Duma Elections

Last Sunday’s municipal elections in 75 of Russia’s 83 regions were like a bad rerun.  Everyone played their role well in the latest stage production of managed liberal democracy. United Russia trounced its rivals, most importantly in the coveted Moscow city government where UR took 32 of 35 seats.  The country’s real opposition, the Communist Party, got a mere three.  Similar results were reproduced across the country. Overall numbers show that the Party of Power averaged around 70% of the votes nationwide, while the Communists hovered around 13%.  The rest–Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party were in the single digits.  The liberal party meld of Yabloko and Right Cause got nothin’ worth mentioning.

Of course, every oppositional faction–which ranges from those who could participate like the Communists, LDPR, Just Russia, and Yabloko and those who couldn’t like Solidarity–hemmed and hawed about election fraud.  No Russian election can occur without it ..read more

“I’m out of it for a little while and everybody gets delusions of grandeur.” Now I understand how Han Solo felt after being defrosted from carbonite. I go into the basement for two weeks and there are rumors of me being in a post-election hangover, or worse, murdered.  Well, I assure you dear readers that I’m alive and well.  Los Angeles may be ablaze (again) but I’m safe from the rings of fire, that is until I kick the bucket and meet the dark lord.

For the past few weeks I’ve been devoting my Bolshevik will and strength to finishing a dissertation chapter.  “Bolsheviks can storm any fortress” read the Stalinist slogan, and I did. I do have to finish this damn dissertation at some point. And well if I have to pick between you my dear reader and my career, well my petite-bourgeois sensibilities win out every time.  Just don’t ..read more

For Chechen hetman Ramzan Kadyrov, last weekend’s Duma elections was just another opportunity to show his loyalty to Moscow and further entrench his own power. 99.36 percent of the Chechen vote–574,101 votes out of an electorate of 580,918–went to United Russia. A staggering turnout of 99.5 percent. A number which appeared to Central Electoral Commission head Vladimir Churov as “absolutely pure, transparent and logical.”

Kadyrov himself explained the United Russia’s excessive landslide as simply the reflection of the people’s trust. “There’s nothing unexpected here” he said. “The federal list was headed by head of state Vladimir Putin and in Chechnya the president of the republic was first on the list. The vote showed how much trust the leaders of the country enjoy.”

Yes, trust. And Kadyrov made sure to capitalize on this “trust”. For alongside electing four members to the State Duma, all of which are ..read more

Here’s something to chew on. Nicolai Petro asks in his column “Why Russian Liberals Lose“:

“Why have Russia’s self-proclaimed “liberals” done so badly at attracting popular support?” A few reasons actually. First, he states that liberals like Vladimir Ryzhkov, Irina Khakamada, Grigory Yavinsky, Mikhail Kasyanov and Boris Nemtsov’s initial embrace of figures like Eduard Limonov and Garry Kasparov have caused more harm than good. The fact that most of them, except for Ryzhkov and Nemtsov, have dumped Other Russia, the fact that they were once wedded to them is a hard thing to shake.

Second, the problem isn’t that the liberals can’t get its message to the public. Petro claims that a quarter of Russians have access to the internet, each of the eleven parties on the ballot got “three hours of prime national television time,” and that Yabloko has a 97 percent name recognition rate. ..read more

The only thing more predictable than United Russia’s victory on Sunday, is the West’s virtually unanimous condemnation of the elections.   A spokesman from the German government called them “Neither a free, fair nor democratic election.”  The Swedish forgien minister said Russia is a “steered democracy.”  A European observer call them “not a level playing field.” U.S. President Bush gave Putin no congradulations, instead making one of his typical responses, “I said we were sincere in our expressions of concern about the elections.”  I think it’s time to start translating Washington’s newspeak “expressions of concern” as “We don’t give a shit but I have to say something.”  The only Western leader who broke step was France’s Nicholas Sarkozy.  In a phone call to Putin, Sarkozy congratulated Putin on United Russia’s victory.

As a whole, however, the post-election reporting is so uniform that the only thing that reporters seemed to prove is ..read more

Here are the official results TsIK (Central Electoral Commission) head Vladimir Churov gave at a press conference.

United Russia: 64.1% Communist Party of the Russian Federation: 11.6% Liberal Democratic Party: 8.2% Just Russia: 7.8% Agrarian Party of Russia: 2.3% Yabloko: 1.6% Civil Forces: 1.1% Union of Right Forces: 1.0% Patriots of Russia: 0.9% Party of Social Justice: 0.2% Democratic Party of Russia: 0.1%

The turnout of the election was 63% of registered voters.

According to VTsIOM, the 5th Duma break down might be as follows:

United Russia: 313 seats. Communist Party: 62 seats LDPR: 40 seats Just Russia: 35

In comparison to the composition of the 4th Duma, here are the gains and losses for each party when they enter the 5th Duma:

United Russia: +13 Communist Party : +15 LDPR: +11 Just Russia: +2

The fact that each party gained seats is because the 7 percent threshold cut the chaff from the wheat. When the percentages of the 4th and 5th Duma are compared, you get the following gains and losses.

United Russia: -1.9% Communist Party: -1.2% LDPR: +1.8% Just Russia: +.5%

Well, this breakdown ..read more