Translated material
Three, ten, ace
United Russia proposes expanding federal party lists and combining elections
The State Duma has begun polishing the electoral legislation for the 2011 parliamentary elections. This process was launched by United Russia. In recent days, representatives of the party in power have made several proposals regarding the organization of the upcoming federal Duma campaign.First of all, United Russia members propose replacing the usual threes of the federal part of the party voter lists with dozens. More precisely, to give parties the opportunity to include from one to ten candidates in the federal part of the lists for the Duma elections. And this is despite the fact that in 2007 the party in power made do with not only three, but a “trump card”, the only candidate at the head of the federal list. Let us recall that this was Vladimir Putin, who was then holding the post of president and was not yet the leader of United Russia .
However, on September 13, the bill on dozens was already submitted to the State Duma by the speaker of the lower house Boris Gryzlov together with his party colleagues - vice speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and the head of the Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state building Vladimir Pligin. Moreover, the same Mr. Volodin said that Vladimir Putin may again single-handedly head the United Russia list in the 2011 Duma elections.
Commenting on this idea, Mr. Gryzlov noted that the proposed amendments to the current legislation were discussed at the end of last week at a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the leaders of parliamentary parties. The head of the Duma “bears” called on his colleagues in the lower house to support the initiative of United Russia. However, United Russia members, who own a controlling stake in the votes, are able to adopt the necessary amendments without any support from deputies from the LDPR, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and A Just Russia.
However, Deputy General Director of the Center for Political Technologies Alexey Makarkin believes that this is a rare case when the initiative of United Russia can become a real nod to the opposition. The fact is that during the distribution, the mandates won by the party are first received by candidates from the general federal part, and then they are distributed among the regions according to the number of votes received in each subject of the federation. “United Russia” doesn’t care whether it’s three or ten; they even take second and third place in regional lists, which makes it possible to place all party sponsors in their places,” Mr. Makarkin explained to a Vremya Novostey correspondent. “But For oppositionists, often only one place in regional lists is acceptable - first.”
In this sense, the LDPR is relatively easy: for voters of this party, the composition of the regional trios is not so important, as long as Vladimir Zhirinovsky is at the head of the list. “But the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the regions has an ideological constituency, where businessmen in first place will not be understood,” Mr. Makarkin noted. “We have to put solid party members at the head of regional groups, and either then they will refuse mandates, or the sponsors will not come through.” And it will be possible to include the main sponsors in the top ten federal part, and almost unnoticed by the voter: except for political scientists, no one will read or remember this long list.
For this curtsey, United Russia, of course, immediately demanded compensation - the combination of parliamentary elections and all regional elections in 2011. Let us remind you that according to the law, regional elections are held twice a year in bulk on the second Sunday of March and October. Boris Gryzlov, however, proposes that the entire country vote only once in 2011 - in December, simultaneously with the State Duma elections. In this case, voters will simply receive two ballots instead of one, and in some cases three at once.
Let us recall that in 2007 the parliamentary elections were also combined with regional ones, but only in the autumn. And in March 2007, the country expressed its will as usual, and this campaign became for all its participants a test of strength before a federal battle. If Boris Gryzlov’s idea is implemented, such a test of strength, unexpectedly for everyone, will be the autumn campaign of 2010, which has already started in the regions.
The leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation criticized United Russia, considering its latest election initiatives inconsistent and contradictory. “Proposals from representatives of the leadership of United Russia to combine next year’s elections to the State Duma with regional ones and hold them, perhaps, in October rather than December, as well as the legislative initiative of United Russia to increase the federal list of political parties in elections from three to ten people— this is nothing more than an attempt to disorient voters, this is a clear example of manipulation of election technologies,” says State Duma deputy, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergei Obukhov. “If proposals to combine three election campaigns next year are justified by the desire to save budget funds, then it would be more logical for United Russia to propose holding all elections once every six years - along with the presidential ones, but then let the party in power stop talking about some kind of democracy, even a sovereign one,” Comrade Obukhov told Interfax.
The communist deputy expressed bewilderment that United Russia, while proposing to legislate an increase from three to ten people in the federal party list, at the same time does not exclude the possibility that party leader Vladimir Putin could again lead its list in future parliamentary elections. “And in this case, the United Russia leadership believes, there will be no need to include any other candidates on the federal list.”
According to deputy Obukhov, “if the campaign for future State Duma elections is actually turned by United Russia into a dress rehearsal for the 2012 presidential elections, if the party list is headed by the leader of this party, then it would probably be more expedient to put only one Gennady Andreevich at the head of the Communist Party list Zyuganov". He noted that combining all elections next year is beneficial not only to United Russia, but also to the LDPR and A Just Russia: “For these parties, all regional campaigns, as a rule, are conducted from the center, and their top officials head the party lists everywhere "As a result, these two parties, with the proposed combination of federal and regional elections next year, will solve their main problem - the weakness of structures at the regional and local levels."
Small parties are also dissatisfied with the idea, for which such a combination did not bring anything good in 2007. Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin recalled that while Duma parties are registered automatically in elections at any level, nanoparties have to collect signatures. “Try to imagine how many resources we need to collect signatures to register our lists, if a huge number of regional elections, local elections, and, in addition, elections to the State Duma take place on one day!” - Mr. Mitrokhin was indignant. Although, it would seem that the combination should play into the hands of autograph collectors: instead of going to the same addresses twice, they will simply invite citizens to sign on several forms.
But Yabloko’s colleague on the liberal front, co-chairman of Right Cause, Leonid Gozman, saw in the combination of voting days an attempt by the “bears” to shift regional campaigns onto the shoulders of federal-level players. “It seems to me that United Russia feels the loss of its positions in the regions, in some of which irritation towards them is already off the charts,” says Mr. Gozman. “Therefore, the unification of all elections is a beneficially tailored campaign for federal elections, where you can attract the largest significant figures who will automatically raise the authority of the leaders of regional lists.”
Boris Gryzlov has not yet discussed the idea of combining all elections next year with the president, but promises to do this, perhaps at Dmitry Medvedev’s next meeting with the leaders of parliamentary parties.
But deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg are already officially proposing to allow the terms of office of regional parliaments to be shortened or increased by no more than a year, so that elections in them are combined with federal ones. The draft law was approved at a meeting of the legislative assembly on September 15 and will be sent to the State Duma. The adoption of these norms will first of all make it possible to postpone elections to the parliaments of the constituent entities of the federation, whose powers end in March 2012, to December 2011, combining them with elections to the State Duma. “It is more logical to combine elections to parliaments of different levels in order to free the presidential elections from the additional information load on the voter,” said Vadim Tyulpanov, chairman of the legislative assembly and head of St. Petersburg United Russia.