Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

Municipal elections 287Duma (currently CPRF, LDPR, Motherland, United Russia) do notneed to gather signatures or pay a deposit in order to register for anylevel of election, and the amount of state funding to these parties hasalso been substantially increased.(f) In July 2005 the maximum share of state officials and members of politicalparties that were permitted to serve in electoral commissions wasincreased from one-third to one-half. Parties with party list seats in theState Duma also have a privileged positions through their nomination of themembers of electoral commissions. This has led to a situation wherebysupporters of United Russia now dominate the electoral commissions atall administrative levels (see below). Under Putin we have witnessed thedevelopment of a new ‘power vertical’ of electoral commissions, withhigher-level commissions now granted the right to appoint heads oflower-level commissions. Thus, for example, the Russian FederationCentral Electoral Commission has the right to appoint the chairs ofregional commissions. These changes, it has been argued by members ofthe Central Electoral Commission, were motivated by the need to createregional and local commissions that would be independent of regionaland local powers. Under Yeltsin, regional electoral commissions werecaptured by regional powers, and municipal commissions in turn wereunder the tight control of regional commissions. The situation is now muchmore complex, especially given the fact that Putin since January 2005,has been granted the power to nominate and dismiss regional executives.(g) In July 2006 the Duma adopted legislation removing the ‘vote against all’category from ballots. No longer will citizens have the opportunity to showtheir disapproval of the election system, the lack of real choice, or ofindividual candidates, by voting against all candidates. In a similar veinfrom January 2007 minimum turnout requirements have been abolished.For Wilson, the above developments are part and parcel of Putin’s ‘centralizingproject’. The Law ‘On Political Parties’ ‘prohibits national ethnicand religious parties and prevents the formation of regional parties’, whilst‘the introduction of Proportional Representation in the regions has givenparties a foothold in regional legislatures that were previously the almostexclusive preserve of regional interests’. 13Municipal elections 2004–5The first round of elections to the newly formed municipalities was held overthe period March 2004–December 2005. During this period elections wereheld (for both old and new bodies of local government) in 19,266 municipalities.14 By the end of this election cycle, in December 2005, 198,815deputies had been elected to the local councils (including 119,358 to thenewly formed councils), and 13,655 heads of local administrations wereelected (including 8,644 in newly formed municipalities).