|
Thursday, 06.09.2007
15 Parties to take to the Hustings – in Principle
Moscow. The election campaign kicked off today with publishing of the list of registered parties. 15 parties will compete for seats in the lower house, the Duma.
|
|
The Ministry of Justice published today a list of the parties permitted by the new, stricter electoral laws to field candidates – if they can get together the necessary number of signatures and the cash deposit. Greens, left-wingers, right-wingers, liberals – and a very strong centre
|
Parties include the time-honoured parties from the 1990s such as the Communist Party (CPRF), Zhirinovsky’s LDPR and the Agrarian Party, as well as the Kremlin-loyal United Russia (ER) and Fair Russia (SR). The two pro-Western liberal parties Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko, and also the Russian Green Party, will also be campaigning.
|
In contrast to previous parliamentary elections, the forthcoming elections will have a 7% instead of 5% cut-off barrier. These will also be the first elections after the abolition of electoral blocs, of first-past-the-post constituencies, and the “against all” option.
|
This election campaign will only last four weeks
|
The parties have to finalise their lists of candidates by October 5th, and by October 17th submit them to the Central Electoral Commission. The election campaign itself is restricted to 28 days: Only during this period do parties enjoy the right to TV political advertising. Posters and billboards are also not permitted any earlier.
|
These changes to the electoral law, and also the deliberate decision to delay promulgating the decree on the election date, all go towards keeping the election campaign as short as possible. As described in the newspaper Kommersant today, Kremlin officials have also confirmed this – although they deny that this is in the interest of the current majority party United Russia.
|
“They want to keep everything down to a minimum because they are terrified that the opposition will inform the people about everything that has been done recently,” says CPRF secretary Vadim Solovyov about the Kremlin’s motives. “They are really afraid of Orange revolutions like in other countries,” he argues.
|
Kremlin tries to preserve the current political constellation
|
“The fewer elections, the better,” is the Kremlin’s motto, agrees Yevgeny Mintchenko, Director of the International Institute for Political Expertise. The authorities are happy with the current party ratings, which is why they are trying just to preserve the situation.
|
Survey: ER between absolute and two-thirds majority
|
Last week, public opinion institute VTSIOM published the results of a survey showing that only the “Russia” parties ER and SR as well as the Communists and Zhirinovsky have a chance of getting past the 7% barrier. ER currently gets 57%, the CPRF 18%, SR 14% and the LDPR 11%. Yabloko and SPS get 4% and 3% respectively.
|
Upsets still on the cards
|
Although the election result seems to be a foregone conclusion, Russian pundits are still ready for surprises: A two-party parliament comprising ER and CPRF, or SR beating the Communists to third place, Zhirinovsky failing to make the 7% barrier or a re-entry of the SPS into parliament – following its considerable surprise success in the regional elections – are all conceivable. Some opinion polls also put Putin’s favourite ER under 50%.
|
The Duma campaign would greatly gain in significance were the Kremlin to put a potential Putin successor such as Sergei Ivanov or Dmitry Medvedev at the head of their list of candidates.
|
Russian electoral law prohibits only one party entering parliament – this would otherwise theoretically be possible due to the dominance of ER.
|
There is also a qualification to the tough 7% barrier, if the parties clearing 7% represent together less than 60% of the votes: then one or more parties that have gained at least 5% of the vote are allowed to enter.
(ld/rufo/St.Petersburg)
|
|
