Legislative elections were held in Russia on 2 December 2007. At stake were the 450 seats in the 5th State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly (the legislature). Eleven parties were included in the ballot, including Russia's largest party, United Russia, which was supported by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Official results showed that United Russia won 64.3% of the votes, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation 11.6%, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 8.1%, and Fair Russia won 7.7%, and none of the other parties won enough votes to gain any seats.
Although 400 foreign election monitors were present at the polling stations, the elections received mixed criticism internationally, largely from Western countries, and by some independent media and some opposition parties domestically. The observers stated that the elections were not rigged but that media coverage was heavily favoured towards United Russia. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that the elections were "not fair", while foreign governments and the European Union called on Russia to look for possible violations. The election commission responded saying that the allegations would be examined. The Kremlin insisted that the vote was fair and said it demonstrated Russia's political stability.
Electoral system.
The 2007 election were assigned exclusively from party-list proportional representation under a law adopted in 2005 on the initiative of President Vladimir Putin. He claimed it would strengthen the party system by reducing the number of parties in the Duma. In the previous elections half of the seats were filled using proportional representation and another half using the first-past-the-post system. It was also the first parliamentary election since 1993 that lacks the "against all" option on the ballot, and the first in which there was no provision for the minimum number of voters that must be achieved for the elections to be considered valid.
That year, the 225 single-member districts were abolished. In the election of 2003, 100 of these seats were won by independents or minor party candidates. All seats were awarded by proportional representation. The threshold for eligibility to win seats was raised from 5.0 to 7.0 percent. In 2003 four parties each exceeded 7.0 percent of the list vote and collectively won 70.7 percent of the total Duma vote.
Only officially registered parties were eligible to compete, and registered parties could not form a bloc in order to improve their chances of clearing the 7.0 percent threshold, with the provision that parties in the Duma had to represent at least 60% of the participating citizens, and that there must be at least two parties in the Duma. There were eleven parties eligible to take part in the Duma election. Duma seats were allocated to individuals on the lists of successful parties in accordance with their ranking there, and divided among each regional group of candidates for the party in proportion to the votes received by that party in each region (Article 83: Methodology of Proportional Distribution of Deputy Seats). Any members who resign from their party automatically forfeit their seats.
Several weeks ahead of the election, party leaders take part in moderated debates. Debates are televised on several state channels. Each candidate were given a chance to present his party's agenda, and to challenge opponents with questions. (United Russia refused to participate in the debates to receive more time for allowed promotion clips than other parties.)
In the Republic of Chechnya, a constitutional referendum was held on the same date.
Contesting parties.
15 parties were eligible to participate in the elections. On 13 September 2007, Patriots of Russia and Party of Russia's Rebirth created a coalition, leaving only 14 parties to participate. All 14 parties have presented their lists of candidates to the Central Election commission. However, the Electoral Commission decided the Russian Ecological Party "The Greens" would not be able to stand, due to an alleged large number of faked signatures (17%, more than the allowed 5%) in their supporters' lists. Nationalist People's Union decided to endorse the Communist Party.
Included in final ballots were:
A number of parties contested the election. The biggest and most popular party in Russia is United Russia, which supports the policies of Vladimir Putin. On 1 October 2007, Putin announced he would run first place on the United Russia list and that he might consider becoming Prime Minister after the elections. Other pro-Kremlin parties crossing the seven percent threshold include the new Fair Russia party, led by the Speaker of the Federation Council of Russia Sergey Mironov, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (whose candidates included Andrei Lugovoi, wanted in the UK for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and elected ), which has also been favourable towards President Putin's policies.
The largest opposition party is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which saw its share of the vote cut in half between 1999 and 2003. It came in second with over 11% of the vote, however. The liberal democratic opposition was represented by the free-market Union of Rightist Forces, the more socially minded Yabloko, and Civilian Power representing right liberal ideology, none of which won any seats.
Conduct.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) planned to send a large team of election monitors to Russia for the election, but scuttled the plans after accusing Moscow of imposing curbs and delaying monitors' visas (Russian officials denied the claim). Consequently, only 400 foreign monitors from international organisations (330 of them from OSCE) were on hand to observe at some of Russia's 95,000 polling stations.
Observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) inspected 30 precinct election commissions in the electoral district of the city of Moscow. The statement issued by the mission states the election of deputies of the State Duma "in the election district observed by the Mission was legitimate, free and open, and basically conformed to the requirements of the national legislation of the Russian Federation and its international obligations."
Campaign.
The campaign season was permitted by law to begin on 3 November and end on 30 November. All the parties were provided with some free television and print access, and on-air candidate debates at times appeared informative.
United Russia.
On 1 October 2007 President Putin announced at the convention of the United Russia
party that he would "accept" its invitation to head its list of candidates, although he
declined to join the party. In his acceptance speech, Putin stated that a suggestion by a previous speaker that he become the prime minister after his second term as president ends "is entirely realistic, but it is too soon to talk about this at the moment because at least two conditions would first need to be met. United Russia declined to participate in any broadcast political debates, but on 1 October approved the program that pledged to continue Putin's policy course." The election programme was entitled "Putin's Plan: a worthy future for a great country". The United Russia stressed Russian nationalism and an anti-Western image.
Results.
As of 02:00, 3 December Moscow Time about 47.14% votes had been counted. Four parties passed the 7% threshold: United Russia 63.2%, Communist Party of the Russian Federation 11.5%, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 9.1%, and Fair Russia 7.8%. This was consistent with exit polls conducted by VTsIOM, which predicted 61%, 11.5%, 8.8%, 8.4% respectively. Exit polls conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation showed similar results: 62.3%, 11.8%, 8.4%, 8.3%.
The results mostly repeated those of the previous legislative elections. The ruling centrist party United Russia, leftist Communist Party and nationalist Liberal Democratic Party passed the threshold again; the moderately socialist A Just Russia took the place of Rodina, absorbing many of its members and most of its electorate. United Russia kept its leading position, again receiving a supermajority (more than two-thirds of seats), which gives it an opportunity to make changes to the Constitution of Russia.
Regional results.
Although the United Russia became the leading party in each region, in different regions of the Russian Federation, election results vary considerably. While in metropolitan areas of Moscow and Saint Petersburg with 50-55% turnout United Russia got only about 50% of the votes, the national republics, especially in North Caucasus, provided much stronger voter turnout and support for the ruling party.
According to the official results, the highest turnout was in Chechnya at 99.5%, of which 99.36% votes were cast for United Russia; the Chechen pro-Moscow leader Ramzan Kadyrov had publicly promised beforehand to deliver 100 percent of his republic's vote for Putin. In the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia, where the official results also said around 99 percent of the republic's population had voted and nearly all of them for the pro-Putin party, the elections were preceded by mass protests against the government, and observers suggested that in fact only 8% of people turned out to vote there.
Criticism.
Domestic criticism.
Opposition parties and some independent observers reported widespread abuses, such as strong bias in the Russian media, ballot stuffing, bribery of voters, and coercion of workers and students to vote for United Russia. Nevertheless, critics mostly agree that the United Russia would gain majority even if the election were fair.
Alexander Kynev, a political analyst with the monitoring organisation Golos, said they "have seen a campaign of unprecedented pressure on the voters." Golos said it had received more than 3,000 reports of election abuse on a special hotline. It said various violations during the voting amounted to "an organised campaign". Golos made public an analysis of the 1,329 complaints that were filed during the elections and of the observations of its 2,500 election monitors. According to the report, 23% of all complaints involved officials and police hindering the work of election monitors, 22% involved reports of illegal campaigning, 15% percent involved purported manipulations of the voter lists, 11% percent involved pressure on voters and 9% involved alleged violations of regulations protecting voter privacy.
The Russia's Communist Party said its 300,000 observers identified about 10,000 violations, among them the alleged mass falsification of Duma vote in the Caucasus republic of Dagestan. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called a news conference to criticize the official results. Journalist Grigory Belonuchkin, delegated as an observer by the CPRF in Moscow Oblast, claims that the chairpersons of several polling stations attempted to forge the results while transmitting them to the above committee, rigging vote count in favor of the United Russia.
Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky said "The results of this election were not counted, were not analyzed, were not gathered. They were ordered." He also issued a warning to Yabloko supporters: "Be very careful. We are entering a time when, if something happens, there will be nowhere to turn. A one-party system is built in such a way that there is no court, no law, no defense of any kind."
The Communist Party, Yabloko, and the Union of Rightist Forces are considering filing a joint complaint with the Russian Supreme Court against the official results of the Duma elections. The parties also said they will likely appeal the election results to the European Court of Human Rights, even though a Yabloko-filed case contesting the results of the 2003 elections is still pending there.
Pro-Kremlin Vladimir Zhirinovsky complained of vote-rigging in several regions where his ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia did worse than in the rest of the country, but blaming only local authorities. "Just as road accidents cannot be avoided in any country in the world, there are officials who manipulate (elections), who falsify, even though no one has asked them to do it," Zhirinovsky said.
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who heads the opposition movement The Other Russia, has dismissed the elections as a "farce" and "rigged from the start". Kasparov, who spent five days in jail previous week for holding an unauthorised march, said he plans to lay a wreath outside the Central Election Commission to "mourn the death of Russian democracy". Former Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Kasyanov also said the elections were illegitimate. "There is not doubt that these elections were not free. They were dishonest and unfair. The result is that this Parliament will not be legitimate," he said.
The deputy head of Central Election Commission of Russia, Nikolai Konkin, said "all complaints and allegations will be carefully examined" and pledged to respond in the coming days. Already on 3 December, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told CNN the complaints were "groundless". He also said he had