| Following President Vladimir Putin's latest proposals
for government reform, elections have been held for four regional legislatures
-- in the Tula, Sakhalin and Irkutsk regions and the republic of Marii-El.
Under a mixed electoral system introduced last year, half of the seats
in all four legislatures were allocated by party list. These elections
offer the first test of strength following the State Duma elections last
fall and the presidential election earlier this year.
Reports of United Russia's collapse in these elections are greatly exaggerated.
United Russia was very successful in delivering control of the Duma in
2003, but the Kremlin never developed it into a true party of power. Given
this fact, and the criticism that the party has faced for unpopular reforms,
its performance -- 20 to 30 percent of the vote -- should be viewed as
an outstanding achievement. In single-mandate districts, United Russia
performed even better. Party leaders deserve little credit for this outcome,
however. The real cause is more likely the traditional conformism of a
section of the electorate that supports the current regime no matter what.
Reports of the Union of Right Forces' success in the Tula and Irkutsk
elections are no less exaggerated. The party ran as part of a bloc that
barely managed to clear the 5 percent barrier for representation in parliament.
Three of the four parties in the current Duma -- United Russia, the Communist
Party and the Liberal Democrats, or LDPR -- failed to live up to expectations
in the four elections. Yet only these parties, along with the Pensioners'
Party, contested the party-list vote in all four regions. Though United
Russia finished first in every region save Sakhalin, it collected a smaller
percentage of the vote than it did in the Duma election. The LDPR tanked
in two of four elections. The Communists added a few percentage points
to their Duma election total, but that total was so low that the party
leadership blamed it on vote-rigging and a Kremlin campaign against the
party.
Neither the Communists nor Yabloko managed to tap into potential opposition
to the Kremlin's social policy reforms. The left-wing protest vote went
to Rodina and the Agrarians, while angry right-wingers stayed home or
voted for "none of the above." Only Dmitry Rogozin's Rodina
performed well in this regard. The blocs in which it participated took
first place in the Sakhalin region and placed second in the Tula region.
The Agrarians were the biggest surprise in these elections, taking 10
to 12 percent in the Irkutsk region and Marii-El, and joining forces with
Rodina to finish first in Sakhalin. The Pensioners' Party unexpectedly
cleared the 5 percent barrier in all four regions.
These results speak to a crisis in the political party system, and the
fading of established parties from the scene. Declining voter turnout
-- just half of the turnout for last year's Duma vote -- offers further
evidence of the crisis. The number of voters who cast their ballots for
"none of the above" rose above 10 percent -- good enough for
third place in the party-list contest.
Any election is a useful indicator of the public mood on the one hand,
and of the changing distribution of political power on the other. The
four elections held this month produced a far better balance of parties
than last year's Duma elections. Five or six parties or blocs are represented
in each of the four legislatures and none is clearly dominant.
But party representation isn't the most important factor. The regional
legislatures will now be called upon to approve amendments to their constitutions,
and will have a say in the nomination of governors. What matters is therefore
whether or not the governor controls a loyal majority in parliament, and
what support the Kremlin can rely on in the consideration of reform measures.
Not all is going smoothly on this last front. The president's reforms
have gotten bogged down in a number of regional parliaments, including
the Perm, Sverdlovsk, Voronezh and Primorye regions and the republic of
Komi.
As for the four newly formed legislatures, with the possible exception
of the Tula region, the sitting governors and the Kremlin enjoy the support
of a majority of deputies. It remains to be seen which side deputies loyal
to both the Kremlin and the governor will take in case of a conflict between
the two. A split within United Russia -- as happened recently in the Saratov
and Ivanovo regional legislatures cannot be ruled out.
Elections will take place in another six regions before the year is
out, providing an opportunity to see if these emerging trends continue.
Nikolai Petrov is a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
See also:
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