Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Electoral reforms and democratization 149selection of officials, the authorities are inevitably lowering their own professionallevel and their adequacy. This means that the collapse of such anunreal system, closed in upon itself and isolated from society’s main concerns,may be just a matter of time.Notes1 The Conference unites all the states of Western and Eastern Europe and the USAand Canada. This European regional organization started work in Helsinki on 3July 1973. At the end of 1994 the Conference was transformed in to theOrganization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).2 B. G. Peters, Politicheskiye instituty vchera i segodnya: Politicheskaya naukanovye napravleniya, Moscow, 1999, p. 223; Russian translation of A NewHandbook of Political Science, Oxford University Press, 1996.3 The Russian Party of Peace was in second place after United Russia in Ingushetiya.4 A. V. Kynev, ‘V ozhidanii novovo elektoral'novo predlozheniya. Vybory regional'nykhzakonodatel'nykh sobraniy kontsa 2004–nachala 2005 g’, Polis, No. 3, 2005.5 A. V. Kynev, ‘Vybory Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy 4 dekabrya 2005: apofeozimitatsionnykh vyborov’, http://www.igpi.ru/info/people/kynev/kynev-moskovskie_vybory_2005.htm6 For example, in Moscow the deposit to stand for the Moscow City Duma was1,350,000 roubles (about $50,000) for candidates in single-member districts and 15million roubles (about $550,000) for a political party list.7 The permissible amount of rejections was reduced from 25 per cent to 10 per cent,while Russian legislation does not distinguish between unreliable, i.e. forged, signaturesand so-called ‘invalid’ signatures: signatures of genuine voters whichinclude an error such as the omission of the last letter of the street name of theiraddress. In addition a requirement was brought in for the lists of signature collectorsto be legally authenticated. Since the ‘technical rejection’ of signatures isalmost always at a level of at least 20 per cent (the collection of signatures amongthe least-educated section of the elderly population – and consequently those mostlikely to make mistakes – always presents special problems) registration by presentingsignatures was thus possible only when the electoral commission had anobviously benevolent attitude towards the candidate or the party list.8 Without doubt this rule was completely ‘virtual’ since the fact that the party couldsubmit a candidate to the President of Russia did not put the President under anyobligation. A number of instances arose in 2005-6 when regional branches ofUnited Russia fought actively against the reappointment of a number of incumbentgovernors (in particular in the Kostroma and Amur Oblasts, and the KomiRepublic). When the President nominated the former incumbents the regional‘United Russians’ gave way obediently and approved all the President’s nominations.9 Here the party had very strong personalities on its list (in particular the incumbentState Assembly deputies Bezruchenkov and Shefer), thanks to which it won10.5 per cent instead on 3.68 per cent.10 It is interesting to note that in an identical situation in another region, theSverdlovsk Oblast, the regional court decided to reject the case against Yabloko.