Russia's Authoritarian Elections by Stephen White

Author:Stephen White [White, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415696715
Google: yMaAZwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 13716455
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-01-15T13:37:13+00:00

Figure 1. A SLIDING AVERAGE REPRESENTATION OF THE SHARES OF THE VOTE CAST FOR UNITED RUSSIA AND THE KPRF IN THE DECEMBER 2003–APRIL 2007 REGIONAL LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS AND IN THE DECEMBER 2003 NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS

The moving average figure enables the resolution of a methodological problem not addressed above: what if the observed levels of party support are attributable not to the cross-temporal dynamics but rather to the cross-regional variation? This is why the figure contains information about the average shares of the vote received by United Russia and the KPRF in the 2003 national legislative elections in the same regions for which average local results are reported. As follows from the figure, to a certain extent the cross-regional variation argument holds. It is true that the December 2003–March 2004 regional elections were held in the regions with higher than average support for United Russia, which explains, if only partially, the sharpness of its decline in the autumn of 2004, and an element of its recovery in the autumn of 2005. However, starting with December 2005, the moving average of United Russia’s vote in national elections remained steadily lower than in the regional ones. This means that the cross-temporal explanation holds independently of the cross-regional variation. It is noticeable that the last increase in United Russia’s vote occurred in March 2007, but it was far less visible than the autumn 2004 upsurge.

Apparently, a repeat of the results of the March 2007 regional elections was not to be an acceptable outcome for the Duma elections that were due to be held in December 2007. The lesson for the Putin leadership was that there had to be only one ‘party of power’, United Russia, to claim an unquestionable victory and to emerge as a lasting base of Vladimir Putin’s regime (Hale 2004; Remington 2008). Hence the decision of Vladimir Putin to join the list of United Russia, which made the rhetoric of A Just Russia, with its claims to be critical of United Russia but loyal to Putin, utterly irrelevant. Thus the 2007 Duma elections finalised the party system of electoral authoritarianism as a system with the ‘party of power’ at its core, supplemented by three minor formations represented in the parliament, the KPRF, the LDPR and A Just Russia, and several extra-parliamentary formations doomed to gradual extinction.

Conclusion

The major component of the system of electoral authoritarianism that took shape in Russia in 2005–2007 is restricted freedom of political association. As of July 2009, there were seven political parties that still had official registration. Obviously, however, it is not simply a matter of how many parties there are. Even a limited number of opposition parties could offer serious competition to United Russia, but only under two conditions: if they offer serious programmatic alternatives able to mobilise the voters, and if they can attract influential regional politicians to their ranks. None of the current parties met those conditions. Two of the three parties actually competing with United Russia on a more or less systematic basis—the KPRF and the LDPR—have a narrow appeal.

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