Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

144 Aleksandr KynevOn the other hand, the increased significance of heading the ruling party’slist led to the encouragement of competitors for the current governors insidethe regional branches of United Russia; heading the ruling party’s list orbeing second on it had for them the same status as that of ‘crown prince’.Combined with the interference of the party’s federal leadership (every partylist had to be agreed by the General Council of the party), the result wasthat a number of United Russia party lists were made up of groups that wereactually in competition. Because of this, supporters of the Governor ofAstrakhan, Zhilkin, and the Mayor of Astrakhan, Bozhenov, had to join thegeneral list, as the two officials were competing with each other for power.The administration of the Lipetsk Oblast was forced to hand over a numberof places on its list to the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine, and theadministration of the Governor of Sverdlovsk, Rossel, had to give places tothe supporters of the Mayor of Yekaterinburg, Chernetsky. In Kareliya theleadership of the region was effectively forced to support the candidacy ofthe incumbent mayor, Maslyakov, in the elections for the mayor ofPetrozavodsk. The secretaries of the Primorskii and Tyva regional branches ofUnited Russia, Kurilov and Kara-ool, tried to promote their own candidateson the party’s lists.In some regions, in particular Primorskii Krai and Kareliya, the GeneralCouncil of the party had to make radical alterations to the makeup of the listsput forward by regional organizations, so as to avoid excessive predominanceby the representatives of a single group.As the election results showed, automatic reliance on the ruling authoritydid not prove to be correct in every region. The presence of the heads ofTyva and Kareliya, Oorzhak and Katanandov, neither of them very popular,at the tops of the lists led to the fact that in Tyva United Russia lost almost20 per cent of its vote in comparison to 2003, and in Kareliya its resultshardly changed, despite the reduction in political competition and the abolitionof voting ‘against all’. Overall the ruling party’s vote rose only slightlyin the Sverdlovsk and Novgorod Oblasts. The greatest increase in the votefor United Russia occurred in Lipetsk Oblast and Primorskii Krai; however,in the latter case there are serious doubts as to the correctness of the votingprocedure and the vote count. The party’s increased vote in Chuvashiya andthe Jewish Autonomous Oblast is justifiable if one takes into account thealmost total control of the regional administrations over the political processin the regions. When compared to the results of the 12 March 2006 elections,the overall tendency of United Russia to dominate has clearly weakened,despite the increased involvement of senior figures in the elections and adecreased turnout of voters.The situation with voting for the CPRF varies greatly in the regions: frommaintaining its previous position or even increasing slightly (explicable if onetakes into account the drop in competition between the parties) in Kareliya,Chuvashiya, Novgorod Oblast and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, to aconsiderable drop in the Astrakhan and Lipetsk Oblasts and a smaller drop