Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Electoral reforms and democratization 129Rodina remained approximately the same. At the same time regional blocswere achieving considerable success (in particular in Amur, Arkhangel'sk,Magadan, Ryazan', Sakhalin and Tula Oblasts, Khakassiya and Taimyr), asdid parties with a sufficiently well-known brand and a low negative rating,usually politically left of centre, the Russian Party of Pensioners and theAgrarian Party. The ‘traditionally’ democratic parties failed, with a fewexceptions. These successes were often unexpected for sociologists, so onecan presume that the undecided voters shared their votes unevenly at the lastmoment: they preferred to vote either for well-known, but not ‘system’,partiesorfor regional patriotic blocs. Compared to the results of the elections to the StateDuma, the vote for United Russia only increased in three regions where the listsfor the regional elections were headed by the incumbent governor: the Kalugaand Voronezh Oblasts and the Yamalo-Nenetskii AO. 42 Reforms in the second half of 2005–March 2006: toughening ofelectoral legislation (the electoral counter-reformation);consequences of the abolition of direct elections for governorsNew amendments to the federal law, ‘On the Basic Guarantees of ElectoralRights and the Right of Russian Federation Citizens to Participate inReferendums’ were adopted in June and July 2005 following the results ofthe thirty-two regional electoral campaigns between 2003 and the start of2005. The most important changes were the abolition of electoral blocs, thesetting of an upper electoral threshold of 7 per cent, which many regionstook as a signal to raise their thresholds from 5 to 7 per cent, and a tougheningof the procedure for registering lists and candidates, which increasedthe legal possibilities for the registering and supervising bodies to influencethe composition of the candidates (i.e. strengthened administrative controlon the process of the elections and the nomination of candidates). 5The setting of extremely large electoral deposits (according to the region’schoice it was between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of the maximum size ofthe electoral fund 6 ) combined with the virtual impossibility of registrationvia a collection of signatures 7 signified the virtual creation of a system ofhigh-income qualifications that limited the right of citizens to be elected. Atthe same time the parliamentary parties (i.e. parties that had crossed thethreshold at the last elections to the State Duma), first and foremost UnitedRussia with its parliamentary majority, had freed themselves when registeringboth from collecting signatures and from paying deposits. In this way thefinancial qualifications applied first and foremost to the opposition and tonew political projects and non-party citizens. All these measures were multipliedby the general increase in the size of electoral districts, and as at leasthalf the deputies of the legislature had to be elected from party lists, thiscould only be avoided by increasing the overall number of deputies.It was also decided that two ‘single voting days’ would be allowed per yearfor elections. If previous elections to the legislative assemblies of members of