Reckless reliance on single-mandate candidates is fraught with new problems for the authorities

The new State Duma elections are still a long way off, but talk has already begun that the principle of forming the lower house of the Russian parliament will change again. The fact that each regular parliamentary election in Russia is held according to new rules is not news. What may be news is the further curtailment of the party system by increasing the number of deputies elected in single-mandate districts from the current 50 to 75% of the total composition of the State Duma.

Why do Russian authorities love single-mandate candidates so much and, at the first sign of a decline in their ratings, cut party quotas? Even when the current system was launched in 1993, only half of the seats in the Duma were distributed by party lists, although the very configuration of the bicameral parliament clearly assumed proportional election of the lower house. The answer is simple: elections in districts are an extremely expensive undertaking and, with rare exceptions, only wealthy candidates or those with access to administrative resources, who are by no means strangers to the executive branch, win them.

The Yeltsin administration's concerns about the proportional system were well founded: the 1993-1995 elections showed that the then "parties of power" could not attract the mass electorate, but the opposition LDPR and CPRF did it very well. Since then, it seems, the fear of uncontrolled admission of parties to elections has lived in the corridors of the presidential administration: at any moment, a skilled opposition leader can take advantage of voters' discontent and, with a few bright speeches, ensure his party's powerful representation in the Duma, complicating the life of the executive branch. At the same time, deputies elected by the majoritarian system also showed their usefulness: it was thanks to their votes that Boris Yeltsin repeatedly received significant representation in parliament, despite the disappointing results of the voting for party lists for the pro-government forces.

The balance of power in the Duma changed radically under Putin, when for a time (2007–2011) a fully proportional system returned. Given the president’s high popularity, this led to the final defeat of the regional elites: now all mandates were distributed centrally and the mechanism of insurance through elections in districts lost its meaning.

It seemed that a perfectly functioning political system had been built. But as soon as the government's popularity began to decline, the old fear returned: what if Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky or someone else manages to jump above their heads and somehow attract the growing protest electorate? Therefore, in 2016, single-mandate candidates were brought back into the game. Perhaps the successful results of the Moscow City Duma elections in 2014, when the capital's parliament was again elected by the majoritarian principle, also played a role in returning to a mixed system.

But a reckless reliance on single-mandate candidates is fraught with new problems for the authorities, and this is precisely what the events of the late 1990s and early 2000s prove. Back then, single-mandate candidates turned out to be situational agents of Putin’s emerging vertical. And although many of them later regretted it, the dismantling of the previous, relatively pluralistic, political system was largely carried out by their hands.

However, there is one important nuance: in the late 90s and early 2000s, the authorities first allowed strong politicians to be elected to the Duma, and then formed a loyal majority out of them, using a wide range of not so much sticks as carrots. Back then, being a deputy was much more profitable and promising, because the executive branch had to achieve his loyalty again and again, and the more difficult the situation, the more expensive it was.

Now the main disciplinary factor is the stick, and there are almost no carrots left: any attempt by a deputy to vote contrary to the instructions handed down from above is fraught with serious consequences. But if the elected, even with the consent of the authorities and even with their help, single-mandate candidates in the Duma are in the majority, will this lever be as effective? Will the desire to get rid of the stick and demand carrots by common efforts become a catalyst for the destruction of the current order of things?

Author - publicist, Yekaterinburg

When single-mandate constituencies return