Centre for the Study of Public Policy
University of Aberdeen

The Levada Center
Moscow

Results of Previous Elections to the Russian State Duma

The election law adopted for the 1993 Duma election stipulated half the 450 Duma members were elected by a party-list system of proportional representation (PR) and half were elected as individual representatives from single-member districts (SMD). Every Russian voter thus received two different ballots. The proportional representation ballot compelled each voter to endorse an electoral organization or vote against all of them. By contrast, the SMD ballot required a voter to endorse an individual, whose party affiliation, if any, could not be given on the ballot.

In order to nominate a list of candidates in the PR ballot, a party or electoral organization had to gather 100,000 signatures from the electorate, of which no more than 15 per cent could be from any one region or republic. The method used to calculate the number of seats won by each party was the Hare method, with a threshold of 5.0 per cent of the valid vote, including votes cast against all, but excluding invalid ballots. To secure a place on an SMD ballot candidates had to gather the signatures of at least 1.0 percent of the constituency electorate. The winner in each SMD contest was simply the candidate with the most votes, regardless of the number of votes cast against all.

12 December 1993

		Votes, %			Seats
		List	SMD		List	SMD	Total,%
	Valid Votes	50.6	50.6
	Invalid Votes	3.7	4.0
	Total Votes (% of electorate)	54.3	54.6
1	Liberal Democratic Party	21.4	2.7		59	5	14.3
2	Russia’s Choice	14.5	6.3		40	30	15.6
3	Communist Party	11.6	3.2		32	16	10.7
4	Women of Russia	7.6	0.5		21	2	5.1
5	Agrarian Party of Russia	7.4	5.0		21	12	7.3
6	Yabloko	7.3	3.2		20	3	5.1
7	Russian Unity and Concord	6.3	2.5		18	1	4.2
8	Democratic Party of Russia	5.1	1.9		14	1	3.3
9	Movement for Democratic Reforms	3.8	1.9		0	4	0.9
10	Civic Union	1.8	2.7		0	1	0.2
11	Future of Russia	1.2	0.7		0	1	0.2
12	Cedar	0.7	0.5		0	0	0
13	Dignity and Charity	0.7	0.8		0	2	0.4
35	Independents	—	45.2		—	146	32.5
36	Against all	3.9	14.8		—	—	—
	Others	0.0	0.7		0	0	0
	Invalid ballots	6.8	7.4
	Total	100	100		225	224*	100

^* One seat left vacant in Chechnya due to political situation.

17 December 1995

The election law adopted for the 1995 election was similar to that adopted for the 1993 election, with the following minor modifications. First, to secure a place on the PR ballot, parties had to have registered with the Ministry of Justice no later than six months before the election, and the number of signatures they had to gather rose from 100,000 to 200,000. Second, invalid votes were now included in the calculation of the 5.0 percent threshold. Third, on the SMD ballot, party endorsements of candidates were indicated.

		Votes, %			Seats
		List	SMD		List	SMD	Total, %
	Valid Votes	64.4	62.9
	Invalid Votes	1.3	1.4
	Total Votes (% of electorate)	65.7	64.3
3	Communist Party	22.3	12.6		99	58	34.9
1	Liberal Democratic Party	11.2	5.4		50	1	11.3
14	Our Home Is Russia	10.1	5.5		45	10	12.2
6	Yabloko	6.9	3.2		31	14	10.0
4	Women of Russia	4.6	1.0		0	3	0.7
15	Communists of the USSR	4.5	1.8		0	1	0.2
16	Congress Russian Communities	4.3	2.9		0	5	1.1
17	Workers’ Self-Government	4.0	0.7		0	1	0.2
2	Russia’s Choice	3.9	2.6		0	9	2.0
5	Agrarian Party of Russia	3.8	5.9		0	20	4.4
18	Great Power	2.6	0.6		0	0	0
19	Forward Russia!	1.9	1.5		0	3	0.7
21	Union of Labor	1.6	0.9		0	1	0.2
22	Pamfilova–Gurov–Lysenko Bloc	1.6	0.7		0	2	0.4
20	Power to the People!	1.6	1.9		0	9	2.0
12	Cedar	1.4	0.4		0	0	0
23	Ivan Rybkin Bloc	1.1	1.5		0	3	0.7
24	Stanislav Govorukhin Bloc	1.0	0.7		0	1	0.2
7	Russian Unity and Concord	0.4	0.4		0	1	0.2
	Independents	—	31.2		—	77	17.1
	Against all	2.8	9.6		—	—	—
	Others	6.6	6.6		0	6*	0
	Invalid ballots	1.9	2.3
	Total	100	100		225	225	100

^* Six small parties winning one single-member seat each.

19 December 1999

The election law adopted for the 1999 election showed further tinkering with the mixed member electoral system of previous years. To secure a place on the ballot, parties had to have registered with the Ministry of Justice one year before the election instead of six months. As an alternative to gathering 200,000 signatures, they had the option of paying a deposit of just over two million roubles, returnable if the party won at least 3.0 percent of the list vote. In order to increase proportionality, the law provided that if parties reaching the five per cent threshold got in total 50 per cent or less of the vote, parties with at least 3.0 per cent of the vote would also win seats by declining numbers of votes up to the point at which the total share of vote exceeded 50 per cent. However, if after this procedure the parties winning seats still had less than 50 per cent of the vote, the election was to be deemed invalid. In the SMD ballots, if votes cast against all exceeded the votes of each candidate, a repeat election had to be held within four months. As a result, repeat elections had to be held in eight districts. Finally, as an alternative to gathering signatures in support of their nomination, SMD candidates were also given the option of paying a deposit of 83,490 roubles, returnable if s/he won at least 5.0 percent of the district vote.

		Votes, %			Seats
		List	SMD		List	SMD	Total, %
	Valid Votes	60.5	60.3
	Invalid Votes	1.2	1.3
	Total Votes (% of electorate)	61.7	61.6
3	Communist Party	24.3	13.4		67	46	25.1
25	Unity	23.3	2.1		64	9	16.2
26	Fatherland–All Russia	13.3	8.6		37	31	15.1
27	Union of Right Forces	8.5	3.0		24	5	6.4
1	Liberal Democratic Party	6.0	1.5		17	0	3.8
6	Yabloko	5.9	5.0		16	4	4.4
15	Communists of the USSR	2.2	0.7		0	0	0
4	Women of Russia	2.0	0.5		0	0	0
28	Party of Pensioners	1.9	0.7		0	1	0.2
14	Our Home Is Russia	1.2	2.6		0	7	1.6
16	Congress Russian Communities	0.6	0.7		0	1	0.2
31	Nikolaev–Fedorov Bloc	0.6	1.0		0	1	0.2
29	For Citizens’ Dignity	0.6	0.2		0	0	0
30	Movement in Support of the Army	0.6	0.7		0	2	0.4
32	Russian People’s Union	0.4	1.1		0	2	0.4
33	Russian Socialist Party	0.2	1.0		0	1	0.2
34	Spiritual Heritage	0.1	0.9		0	1	0.2
12	Cedar	—	0.2		—	0	0
	Independents	—	41.7		—	114	25.3
	Against all	3.3	11.6		—	—	—
	Others	2.9	0.6		0	0	0
	Invalid ballots	1.9	2.2
	Total	100	100		225	225	100

Voting behaviour: 1999

7 December 2003

The election law adopted for the 2003 election retained the mixed member system, but saw the creation of an uneven playing field for new and established parties. In June, 2001, the Duma approved a Kremlin-backed law designed to reduce the number of parties appearing on the ballot by establishing demanding organizational criteria for registration with the Ministry of Justice, including at least 10,000 members and branches with a minimum of 100 members each in at least 45 of the country's then 89 regions, and no less than 50 members in each of the remaining branches (an amendment to the law in December 2004 increased these membership requirements five-fold, to 50,000 members, with branches of 500 members each in 45 regions and no less than 250 members in the remaining branches). Those parties which were able to meet these criteria were exempt from the requirement to collect 200,000 signatures or pay a deposit equal to 37.5 million roubles. The electoral deposit required of SMD candidates as an alternative to collecting signatures also rose to 900,000 roubles, more than ten times the amount in 1999.

437

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438

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Detailed results: 2003

		Votes, %			Seats
		List	SMD		List	SMD	Total, %
	Valid Votes	54.8	54.3
	Invalid Votes	0.9	1.1
	Total Votes (% of electorate)	55.7	55.4
29	United Russia	37.6	23.2		120	102	49.3
3	Communist Party	12.6	10.8		40	12	11.6
1	Liberal Democratic Party	11.5	3.1		36	0	8.0
30	Motherland	9.0	2.9		29	8	8.2
6	Yabloko	4.3	2.6		0	4	0.9
27	Union of Right Forces	4.0	2.9		0	3	0.7
5	Agrarian Party of Russia	3.6	1.7		0	2	0.4
28	RPP-PSS: Pensioners– Fairness	3.1	0.5		0	0	0
31	PVR-RPZh: Rebirth–Party of Life	1.9	2.6		0	3	0.7
32	People's Party	1.2	4.4		0	17	3.8
33	Conceptual Party Unity	1.2	0.0		0	0	0
34	New Course: Automobile Russia	0.8	0.4		0	1	0
12	Greens	0.4	0.1		0	0	0
36	Development of Enterprise	0.4	0.4		0	1	0
37	Great Russia-Eurasian Union	0.3	0.8		0	1	0
15	Communist Workers	—	0.1		—	0	0
	Others	1.7	2.1		0	0	0
	Independents	—	26.8		—	68	15.1
	Against all	4.7	12.9		—	3	0.7
	Invalid ballots	1.6	2.1
	Total	100	100		225	225	100.0

Voting behaviour: 2003
Reasons for List Party Vote
Social Structure and Voting

For further details of Russian elections under the mixed-member electoral system, see Rose and Munro, Elections and Parties in New European Democracies (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2003), chapter 16.

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