Parliamentary election in Russia 2007
The 2007 parliamentary elections in Russia took place on December 2, 2007. A vote was taken on the 450 seats to be allocated in the Duma ( Gossudarstvennaya Duma ), the lower house of the two Russian parliamentary chambers.
By far the strongest force was the United Russia party, which is close to the president . The turnout was given as 63%. Eleven parties applied for entry into parliament. Three smaller parties were not approved by the Central Election Commission because they did not meet the formal requirements.
A constitutional referendum was also held in Chechnya on the same day.
Election result
On December 8, the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation published the official final result:
| Final result of the election to the Russian Duma on December 2, 2007 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parties and voting blocks | be right | % | Seats | |
| United Russia ( Jedinaja Rossija ) | 44.714.241 | 64.30% | 315 | |
| Communist Party of the Russian Federation ( Kommunistitscheskaja Partija Rossijskoi Federazii ) | 8,046,886 | 11.57% | 57 | |
| Liberal Democratic Party of Russia ( Liberalno-Demokratitscheskaja Partija Rossii ) | 5,660,823 | 8.14% | 40 | |
| Just Russia ( Sprawedliwaja Rossija ) | 5,383,639 | 7.74% | 38 | |
| Agrarian Party ( Agrarnaja partija Rossii ) | 1,600,234 | 2.30% | 0 | |
| Yabloko - Russian Democratic Party Yabloko ( Rossijskaja Demokratitscheskaja Partija Jabloko ) | 1,108,985 | 1.59% | 0 | |
| Citizenship ( Grahdanskaya Sila ) | 733.604 | 1.05% | 0 | |
| Union of Right Forces ( Soyuz Prawych Sil ) | 669.444 | 0.96% | 0 | |
| Patriots of Russia ( Patrioty Rossii ) | 615.417 | 0.89% | 0 | |
| Social Justice Party ( Partija Sozialnoi sprawedliwosti ) | 154.083 | 0.22% | 0 | |
| Democratic Party of Russia ( Demokratitscheskaja Partija Rossii ) | 89,780 | 0.13% | 0 | |
| Total (turnout: 63%) | 100.0% | 450 | ||
| Eligible voters | 109.145.517 | 63.72% | ||
| space | Party / block (блок) | Share of votes | be right | Sit Duma | Duma seat share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 
|
United Russia Единая Россия |
64.3% | 45 million | 315 | 70.0% |
2 
|
Communist Party of the Russian Federation Коммунистическая партия Российской Федерации |
11.6% | 8 million | 57 | 12.7% |
| 3 |
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Либерально-Демократическая Партия России |
8.1% | 5.7 million | 40 | 8.9% |
4th 
|
Fair Russia Справедливая Россия |
7.8% | 5.4 million | 38 | 8.4% |
Changes to voting rights in advance
Between the parliamentary elections in 2003 and 2007, a number of legislative changes were made which, according to the Russian government, were intended to consolidate the party system. The founding of parties was made more difficult, and the conditions for entry into the Duma were made more difficult.
Changes to the electoral law
For the 2007 election, the electoral system was changed to exclusive proportional representation . Until the 2003 election , half of the seats in the Duma had been allocated through direct electoral districts (Russian одномандатные округи).
The hurdle for entering parliament has been raised from five to seven percent. However, the electoral law stipulates that the second strongest party will always move into parliament, even if it should receive less than 7% of the vote.
Another change was the abolition of the minimum voter turnout, which until then had been 25%. In addition, the possibility of voting “against all” has been abolished - a special feature of Russian electoral law.
Amendment of the Political Parties Act
In addition to the electoral law, the law on political parties was also changed in the previous legislative period. This change included, among other things, an increase in the minimum number of members from 10,000 to 50,000. The new regulation led to the dissolution of a number of smaller parties, including the Republican Party of Duma MP Vladimir Ryschkow . Ryschkov, however, denied the legality of the dissolution and filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights .
Election campaign
Loyal parties
United Russia , the right-wing radical LDPR , the Just Russia party, which was founded in autumn 2006, and the newly founded party Bürgerkraft are considered loyal to Putin .
The poll results indicated from the outset that United Russia would retain its dominant position in the Duma. Up until September 2007, the election prognoses of the state-affiliated polling institute WZIOM for United Russia showed a share of votes between 45 and 50%. In the months of October and November, the United Russia polls rose again significantly. On October 1, 2007, President Putin announced that he would run as the leading candidate for United Russia and, in the event of a clear election victory, he might stand as prime minister. In the weeks that followed, Putin repeatedly spoke out in favor of the United Russia party . This in turn advertised intensively with the support of the president and declared the election to be a “referendum in support of Putin”. The party's poll ratings rose to over 60%.
The second party, Righteous Russia , which was explicitly loyal to the president , put this development in a difficult position, as it could not advertise with the support of the president and it would now have brought any criticism of its rival United Russia into contradiction to its declared support for the president. Just Russia polls , which were 14% in September, fell to 7% by November.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky's LDPR party attracted attention, among other things, by including businessman Andrei Lugovoi, suspected of murder by the British public prosecutor's office, on the second place of their party list. The forecasts for the party's share of the vote fluctuated constantly between 7 and 9%.
Opposition forces
The only opposition party that, according to the election forecasts, could hope to cross the 7 percent hurdle was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation . Your polls were initially just under 16%, but dropped to around 12% in November
The liberal parties Jabloko and SPS remained well below the 7 percent hurdle in all forecasts. The SPS achieved the highest approval rates, which meanwhile the polling institute WZIOM has forecast an election result of 5.2%. In the course of the election campaign, they intensified their criticism of the government. For example, the SPS party decided to take part in the marches of those who disagreed, organized by more radical opposition forces . Critics accused the SPS of populism because it made a strong shift to the left with its election manifesto . Because of the party's adherence to Nemtsov's leading figure , some of the party's regional leaders boycotted the election campaign.
Several opposition politicians were briefly arrested during a number of demonstrations. Garry Kasparov , one of the organizers of the protests, was subsequently sentenced to five days in prison for organizing an unauthorized demonstration. But he did not personally take part in the election. The Russian Foreign Ministry justified the arrests on the grounds that the demonstrators attempted to carry out an unauthorized street move after an authorized rally.
Criticism of the election process
The opposition parties KPRF, Yabloko and SPS, all of which recorded heavy losses compared to the last election, announced on election night that they would contest the election result in court. The SPS refused to repay the state campaign support, which it would be obliged to do because the result was officially below three percent of the vote. Representatives of the KPRF stated that the party was considering not taking up the officially achieved mandates in order to force new elections. The communists suspect that they were cheated out of about half of their votes.
In the run-up to the election, there was also a conflict between the OSCE and the Russian authorities, as a result of which the OSCE decided to cancel the planned deployment of election observers. The observers sent by the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization did not find any irregularities. The OSCE and the Council of Europe, however, described the election as unfair and not in line with European standards. The Bundestag member Christian Kleiminger (SPD), who as a member of the delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) observed the election, then referred to it as "United Russia" with reference to the economic and personal superiority of unfair. The opposition had no real chance.
The result in Chechnya is usually cited as a prime example of the electoral fraud assumed in various regions , where a remarkable 99% of the votes went to the United Russia party with a voter turnout of 99%, which, according to Chechen NGO activists , is due to the influence of Putin-dependent President Kadyrov owed.
Internet news services reported noticeable changes in voter lists. In July 2007 there were officially 107.062 million eligible voters, shortly before the parliamentary elections this number rose to 109.146 million, while in the 2008 presidential election there were officially fewer than 106.999 million. While the Central Election Commission explains these differences with an update of the electoral lists, critics suspect that the official number of voters was increased before the parliamentary elections, since the absolute number of votes determines the distribution of seats. In order to achieve a high turnout in the presidential elections, in which, in contrast, the percentage of the vote decides, the number of eligible voters has been reduced again.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Russia News: Duma Election: Only 11 out of 14 parties are allowed to run
- ↑ http://www.newsru.com/russia/08dec2007/itogi.html
- ^ Electoral law as a control mechanism. On the new legal regulations of the Duma election in December 2007 (PDF; 243 kB); Analyzes of Russia No. 146, October 26, 2007
- ↑ Zakon o partijach v dejstvii ; Gazeta, January 16, 2007
- ↑ Duma election campaign 2007 (PDF; 413 kB); Analysis of Russia No. 150, November 23, 2007
- ↑ Russia Analyzes No. 151 , November 30, 2007
- ↑ LDPR candidates have been determined, Lugovoi takes second place , RIA Novosti, September 17, 2007
- ^ RIA Novosti: Russia denies criticism of illegal dissolution of the opposition marches
- ^ Message on the website of the Echo Moskwy station ; December 3, 2007
- ↑ http://www.newsru.com/russia/06dec2007/spsps.html
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ OSCE calls Russia election unfair, opposition plans protests Spiegel Online on December 3, 2007
- ↑ This was definitely an unfair choice , on deutschlandradio.de on December 3, 2007
- ↑ The Council of Europe and the OSCE rate the Duma election as "unfair" (tagesschau.de archive), on tagesschau.de of December 3, 2007
- ^ Duma election: Neither fair nor democratic , on focus-online from December 3, 2007
- ↑ That was an empowerment staging on sueddeutsche.de on December 3, 2007
- ↑ The opposition had no chance ( Memento of December 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), on tagesspiegel.de of December 3, 2007
- ↑ OSCE countries must raise their voices on Forward-Online December 3, 2007
- ^ With crooks to victory Spiegel Online on December 2, 2007
- ↑ Kadyrov Delivers the Vote ... ( Memento from June 25, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) Chechnya Weekly, Jamestown Foundation ; December 6, 2007
- ↑ http://www.newsru.com/russia/06mar2008/elections.html
