Russia's Duma Elections and the Practice of Russian Democracy

AuthorJoan DeBardeleben
Published date01 June 2008
Date01 June 2008
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/002070200806300204
Subject MatterRussian Resurgence
Joan Debardeleben is a professor in the institute of European and Russian studies at Carleton
University.
1 See, for example, Putin’s “Message to the federal assembly of the Russian Federa-
tion,” Moscow, 26 April 2007, which particularly focuses on the role of new electoral
procedures for Russia’s democratic development, and refers to the “pseudodemoc-
ratic phraseology” of some critics, www.kremlin.ru.
Former President Vladimir Putin and official spokespersons for the Russian
political leadership have repeatedly proclaimed their commitment to demo-
cratic values, but western observers and domestic critics are skeptical.1The
most recent election for the Russian parliament on 2 December 2007—the
state duma—exemplified the many ambiguities about the state of democracy
in Russia. While the elections were ostensibly competitive—11 parties on the
ballot and four winning seats in the legislature—international observers, to
the extent they were present, made contradictory judgements on the demo-
cratic credentials of the vote. Not surprisingly, those from the Common-
wealth of Independent States approved the election, while the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) refused to send observers be-
| International Journal | Spring 2008 | 275 |
Joan DeBardeleben
Russia’s duma
elections and the
practice of Russian
democracy
| Joan DeBardeleben |
cause the conditions offered by the Russian government were said to prevent
them from doing a proper job. The Council of Europe, on the other hand, car-
ried out its observer mission, concluding that while the elections were “to a
great extent free in terms of a variety of voting options, they were definitely
not fair.”2
Problems with the election had less to do with overt fraud (although op-
position forces made some allegations of that as well) but with restrictions
on conditions preceding and surrounding the vote. These restrictions in-
cluded selective enforcement of electoral laws in order to exclude some par-
ties from participating, general crackdowns on critics of the regime,
restrictions on public gatherings by groups opposing the government, and
media bias. The Council of Europe made specific mention of “abuse of ad-
ministrative resources,” as well as unequal media access, use of force against
and harassment of opposition leaders, restrictive effects of electoral legisla-
tion, and voting improprieties on election day.3In addition, pressure on voters
to support United Russia was widely reported in the press, with allegations
that school teachers, other state employees, and students were threatened
with sanctions if they didn’t vote “correctly.”4In the larger context, many ob-
servers considered these actions unfavourable in democratic governance.
Given the consistently high level of popularity of Vladimir Putin both
preceding and following the election, and the availability of methods of in-
formal influence over regional elites (who in turn have informal tools to in-
fluence the regional vote), the extraordinary methods applied in order to
assure a high vote for United Russia seem puzzling. Some of these measures
simply opened the door to further allegations about a slide toward authori-
tarianism, while being unlikely to affect the outcome in any significant way.
2 “Observation of the parliamentary elections in the Russian Federation (2 December
2007),” Ad hoc committee of the bureau of the assembly, parliamentary assembly of
the Council of Europe, document 11473, 20 December 2007, 5, www.assembly.coe.int.
3 Ibid.
4 Survey results indicated that 17 percent of respondents reported that they or those
close to them were faced with threats or payments from representatives of the local
organs, from superiors at work, from electoral commission workers, or from other of-
ficials in relation to participation in the election. Analytical Center of Yurii Levada,
“Chestnost’ vyborov (4 December 2007,” based on a survey carried out 20-24 Novem-
ber 2007 involving a representative sample of Russia with 1600 respondents,
www.levada.ru.
| 276 | International Journal | Spring 2008 |

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