Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

92 Oksana OrachevaThus, long before the referendum there was a general consensus that thepopulations of both the Oblast and the Okrug would support the merger.Approval of the merger required 50 per cent plus 1 vote.Regional elites worried about low turnout for the referendum utilized their‘administrative resources’ to achieve the desired result. Some of the methodsused clearly violated the citizens’ rights to freely express their opinions. ThePerm Oblast Centre of Human Rights noted the following violations: employeeswere required to present a written confirmation of participation in the referendumat their workplace, hospitals refused to admit people for regular treatmentwithout an absentee ballot, the day of the referendum (Sunday) was made aworking day and all employees were obliged to come to their workplace withan absentee ballot to vote collectively. 32 Such techniques enabled regionalelites to control the process of voting and to ensure that enough people cameto the polling stations and that they voted the ‘right way’!The referendum in fact completed a set of negotiations that had begunmuch earlier. A number of very important agreements were made betweenthe Oblast and Okrug political elites on the one hand, and the federal centreon the other. Those agreements included, but were not limited to: (1) thepreservation of a special administrative status for the Komi-Permyak Okrug,(2) the maintenance of special bonuses for citizens of the Okrug living in theNorthern territories, (3) the establishment of a transition period, and (4) acontinuation of the practice of providing financial aid to the Okrug throughfederal transfers.The economic legacy of unificationNatalia Zubarevich identifies two major principles that an economic justificationfor mergers would have to be based on:• ‘mother’ regions should be able to lead the development of the new subjectof the federation because of their higher economic potential andability to apply an effective model of modernization (positive condition);• Okrug elites are unable to improve the socio-economic situation and toovercome economic gaps (negative condition). 33On the surface the Perm region and the Komi-Permyak AutonomousOkrug’s merger fully complies with the above arguments. The Okrug occupies20.5 per cent of the total territory of the Perm region while only 5.1 percent of region’s population is concentrated there. The Komi-Permyak Okrughas a very low population density of just 4.6 people per sq. km. – that is,four times lower that in the Perm region. Moreover, the Okrug has very lowurban density of 26.0 per cent, which is the lowest in the European part ofRussia. The population is unevenly spread throughout the Okrug territoryand this has also been a contributing factor to the Okrug’s slow economicdevelopment.