“There is a progressive deterioration of the electoral legislation”

On June 9, 2005, Mikhail Tulsky published on the APN.Ru website an article entitled "The Triumph of Oligarchic Democracy", in which he criticizes the Law "On Elections of State Duma Deputies".

This law, signed by President Putin on May 9, 2005, is "a new step towards the elimination of Russian democracy ," believes M. Tulsky. The document returns to the property qualification for parties ( "Russia is returning to what all civilized countries have left" ), the collection of signatures, which is carried out by some parties completely free of charge, is made virtually impossible, and the number of parties that must be represented in the Duma is reduced by new law from four to two.

According to paragraph 2 of Art. 39 of the new law "a party whose federal list of candidates is allowed to distribute deputy mandates in the last elections has the right not to collect signatures and not to pay a deposit . " Thus, three parties that have their own factions in the Duma (ER, KPRF and LDPR) will be able to register for free, and what will happen to Rodina is unclear, since Rodina, as a party in the bloc, participated in the distribution of mandates, but in the law does not spell out how to deal with the parties that won as part of blocs.

In addition to complicating the procedure for registering a party list, the procedure for nominating a list has also become as complicated as possible, the size of the deposit has been increased, Russia has the highest electoral barrier in Europe (in other countries it ranges from 2% to 5%: "With an electoral barrier of 7%, Russia turns out to be the most undemocratic country in Europe" ), a ban on the formation of blocs has been established ( "There is no ban on blocs in any country in Europe ," the author recalls) - and by the end of 2005 bans on blocs will be adopted at the regional level. One of the main innovations of the law was the abolition of elections in single-mandate constituencies. In addition, citizens who are not party members are deprived of the right to self-nomination; Opportunities are increasing to remove opposition parties from elections and de-register with the Ministry of Justice and to persecute opposition candidates.

And so on. In general, the author and the experts interviewed by him state that "there is a progressive deterioration of the electoral legislation" . In particular, Vadim Solovyov, a member of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, also considers the law anti-democratic and made up for United Russia: "The law creates artificial obstacles to the participation in elections of political parties not represented in the Duma. There is clearly an attempt to cut off the right and left opposition . "

Sources

• Tulsky M. Triumph of "oligarchic democracy" // APN.Ru. 2005. June 9.