Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

136 Aleksandr KynevLebedev), the Russian United Industrial Party in Adygeya, Patriots ofRussia in Kaliningrad and Orenburg Oblasts, and also the Russian Party ofLife in Kostroma (with 4.7 per cent thanks to a low 4 per cent threshold),the Kursk Oblast and the Altai Republic.Against the background of increased administrative control over the electoralprocess, the most competitive elections can be considered as those thattook place in the Altai Republic and Kostroma and Ivanovo Oblasts (in thelatter two a low 4 per cent threshold was set), where the behaviour of theregional administration was basically neutral. Tambov Oblast could alsohave been added to this group (all eleven lists were registered), but in thisregion a 7 per cent threshold was set.Thus the abolition of regional blocs and the obvious problems withRodina and the RPP resulted in several previously ‘second echelon’ partiessimultaneously moving into the group of leading parties: these includedSemigin’s Patriots of Russia, formed on the basis of several small parties andsome former CPRF members, (at the elections on 12 March 2006 it putforward lists in seven regions, and five were registered), the Russian Party ofLife, and also the APR, which was patchily successful in participating inelections. At the same time the set of measures adopted by the federalauthorities led to increasing mass personal participation by governors inparliamentary elections. There is justification for supposing that, apart fromthe reasons mentioned above and the direct encouragement for governors tojoin United Russia, the participation of governors in elections to legislativeassemblies took on in part the character of compensation for the loss of thelegitimacy that they had received directly from the electorate: the higherwere the results for the list headed by the governor, the stronger was thegovernor’s position in the federal centre.Continuation of the electoral counter-reformation (summer 2006):elections of 8 October 2006However, the new rules for the game adopted in June and July 2005remained unaltered for only a short time: unforeseen problems in regionalelections clearly propelled United Russia into introducing a new batch ofamendments to the electoral laws in the summer of 2006. They set their helmon a complete lining-up of party structures and a sharp toughening of controlover elected regional deputies.The second part of the electoral counter-reformation was the introductionof a ban on political parties including representatives from other parties inpre-election blocs, i.e. parties were forbidden to form not just blocs, but alsointer-party unions based on the list of one of the parties, when the membersof one party-cum-ally would join the electoral list of another. As well as this,a rule was brought in that a candidate elected from a particular party wasforbidden to join another party during his whole period in office. Breakingthis rule would lead to the candidate being deprived of his mandate, even if