Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

6 Electoral reforms and democratizationRussian regional elections 2003–2006Aleksandr KynevFor Russia the years 2001-6 were years of all-encompassing political reformthat fundamentally changed not only the federal but also the regional politicalprocess. The main features of the reform that affected the political processin the regions were:• election of at least half the deputies to regional parliaments through aproportional electoral system (this rule became obligatory for electionsheld after 13 June 2003);• changes in the composition of the Federation Council, the upper house ofthe Federal Assembly (from 2001, instead of the governors and chairmenof regional legislative assemblies who were members of the FederationCouncil as part of their position, two representatives were appointed fromeach region, one by the governor and one by the legislative assembly, andin this way the heads of the regions lost their parliamentary immunity);• the gradual raising of the threshold for party lists to 7 per cent;• a ban on the existence of regional political parties, followed by a ban onthe formation of pre-election blocs (so that parties unable to meet the 7per cent threshold would be prevented from joining forces);• the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections.All this had major implications for how Russia functioned as a federation,and for how regional political systems and regional political parties operated.Citizens, parties, regional political elites and, arguably, society as awhole, did not have time to become accustomed to each change before it wassucceeded by a further redrafting of the rules regarding political and electoralprocesses, and, by extension, the system of interaction between differentlevels and branches of government. In the period 2001–6 the rules forregional elections were tightened almost annually. Thus the main features ofthese electoral reforms were, overall, standardization of electoral and partylegislation, a minimization of the degree of permissible variation in the rulesfor holding elections in different regions and the full introduction of partiesat elections accompanied by a simultaneous sharp strengthening of statecontrol over political parties.