Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Electoral reforms and democratization 135Oblast and the Khabarovsk Krai). As a result, the possibilities of conductinga successful campaign (‘successful’ means first and foremost appearing on thevoting paper on the day of the elections) were greatly reduced for opposition lists.Apart from Moscow and the Adygeya Republic, Nizhnii Novgorod andKaliningrad Oblasts (where the Muscovites Shantsev and Boos wereappointed governors) also displayed a maximum level of administrativepressure. Out of thirteen lists put forward in the Nizhnii Novgorod Oblastonly six appeared on the bulletin. The lists of Rodina and the Party ofNational Revival, led by Rutskoi, were excluded from the elections in theKursk Oblast.As a result, as in the elections at the end of 2004 and beginning of 2005,the number ticking the ‘against everyone’ box increased considerably in allregions (apart from Moscow, which had abolished voting ‘against everyone’).The CPRF improved its results slightly. In roughly half the regions its resultseither did not change or dropped slightly in comparison to 2003, but in allthe other regions they increased, and this was particularly noticeable inMoscow, Chechnya, the Khabarovsk Krai and Kaliningrad, Kirov, NizhniiNovgorod, Novosibirsk, Tver', Kostroma and Belgorod Oblasts. It is clearthat the absence from the voting papers of Rodina in some regions and theRPP in others played a major part in this. The LDPR results fell everywhere,apart from exceptions in Chechnya and Chukotka (there were only two listsin Chukotka, and the increased result in Chechnya, from a minimal 1.26 percent to a minimal 1.46 per cent, was particularly symbolic). In the autumnof 2005 Rodina hovered around its previous results, and in some places iteven lost noticeably (in the spring of 2006 it only remained on the votingpapers in the Altai 9 ). The RPP effectively missed the autumn 2005 elections,but in the elections on 12 March 2006 won triumphant results in the NizhniiNovgorod Oblast (17.2 per cent instead of 3.2 per cent) and entered thelegislative bodies in the Khanty-Mansiskii AO and Kirov and KaliningradOblasts, but it could not surmount the threshold in other regions. The APRhad patchy success in Adygeya, the Altai Republic and Kirov, Kostroma,Novosibirsk, Orenburg and Tambov Oblasts (but often there was a drop inthe percentage of votes received when compared to 2003).The abolition of pre-election blocs clearly made it more difficult for liberalright parties to conduct electoral campaigns, since they could no longer hidebehind ‘regional patriotic’ party names as they had done in Taimyr and inAmur Oblast (where Yabloko members stood in the lists of the ‘For OurOwn Taimyr’ and ‘We are for the Development of the Amur Oblast’ blocs).Apart from the success of a ‘combined’ list in Moscow (based on Yabloko)and the Ivanovo Oblast (based on the SPS), and an SPS list involving formersupporters of Maskhadov in Chechnya, the liberal right forces had nothingelse to boast about. At the same time even the results of the ‘combined’ listswere worse than the total percentages that these parties gained in 2003.Among other parties the only ones to enter regional parliaments were theParty of National Revival in Tver' (it was supported by the Mayor of Tver',