Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

108 Darrell SliderBashkortostan additional powers. Many regional leaders used their considerableinfluence over local politics (known in Russia as ‘administrativeresources’ which included control over courts, police, media, election commissions,regional financial and economic assets) to help insure that Yeltsinwas re-elected in 1996.Nevertheless, the regional elections that took place in the Yeltsin erashowed signs of Russia’s progress toward a more democratic system. AndrewKonitzer has argued that the second round of gubernatorial elections in thelate 1990s showed important advances in Russian democracy, as voters heldleaders accountable for economic conditions in their regions. 9 It is also thecase that growing pluralism at the regional level was developing enough toprevent the centre or regional incumbents from determining the outcome ofevery election. Many of Yeltsin’s appointees did not win election when electionswere introduced. The Kremlin had limited success in getting itsfavoured candidates elected. According to the Panorama research group, offifty-five governors elected between September 1996 and October 1997, onlytwenty-two were supported by the coordinating council headed by Yeltsin’saide Sergei Filatov. 10Gubernatorial elections in the first years of the Putin presidency wereincreasingly subject to Kremlin interference. A number of ‘electoral technologies’were applied that in effect took the decision-making out of thehands of voters and put it squarely in the Kremlin. 11 In several prominentcases, sitting governors or other leading candidates were forced off the ballot(Alexander Rutskoi in Kursk, for example, and candidates in Pskov andArkhangel'sk) or pressured not to run. The complexity of the machinationsand/or negotiations required to perform these operations in a large numberof regions may be one reason for shifting to a simpler control system. It isalso the case that in some regions the Kremlin’s substantial efforts were to noavail, and voters chose another candidate. Andrew Konitzer found thatbetween 2003 and 2004, the new ‘party of power’ United Russia was muchmore effective in mobilizing political assets for its candidates: in forty-threeraces thirty-five of the candidates supported by United Russia won. 12Nevertheless, eight losses were far too many for the Kremlin to accept.Given the mindset of the Putin administration, elections introduced an elementof unpredictability that complicated their efforts to run the countryfrom the centre.One initial response by the Russian authorities to the unpredictability ofregional elections had the effect of making regional elections more democratic:in April 2003 the election law was revised to require a second roundof voting if no candidate received over 50 per cent in the first round. Prior tothis, most regional elections were held under a first-past-the-post system. Inelections, which frequently featured a large number of candidates, this meantthat winning candidates often had only a small share of the total votes cast.Two candidates with a pro-Kremlin stance, for example, could split thatelectorate and lead to an opposition victory. The run-off system made such