From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/5/2007 12:25 PM
Forbes.com

International
Russia's Kremlin Sustains Control
Oxford Analytica 12.05.07, 6:00 AM ET

The Kremlin's party, United Russia, won a landslide victory in the Dec. 2 parliamentary elections.

President Vladimir Putin now enjoys an enhanced constitutional (two-thirds) majority in the State Duma. As a result, he has a free hand to explore the options of remaining in power when his term as president expires next year.

Consistent with the polls of recent weeks, United Russia gained over 60% of the vote in the elections on Dec. 2. With 97.9% of electoral protocols counted, the Central Electoral Commission reported that just four parties had surpassed the 7% threshold. Apart from United Russia, they were the Communist Party (CPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Just Russia.

The elections were conducted under fully proportional electoral rules, which raised the threshold from 5% to 7% and removed the option of voting against all candidates. They produced fewer wasted votes and a higher level of voter turnout:

--Some 91.7% of the electorate voted for parties that passed the 7% threshold, as compared to 70.7% in 2003.

--Turnout was up to 63%, from 55% in 2003.

Despite the removal of plurality contests for half the seats in the State Duma (parliament), which in the past returned a large number of non-party candidates to the lower house, the political makeup of the new assembly is very similar to the previous parliament:

--United Russia will receive up to 315 of the 450 seats in the Duma.

--The CPRF and LDPR will have slightly more seats in the new assembly than in the old one, but this will not significantly alter the balance of power.

--Moreover, independent Duma deputies--who were a source of opposition to the Kremlin in the last Duma-- will not sit in the new assembly. In the previous parliament, there were 20 or so independents.

--Finally, under the new electoral rules, parties have the power to dismiss from the assembly those members who renege on their party membership.

With the support of President Vladimir Putin throughout the election campaign, United Russia significantly boosted its support. Under the old electoral rules, just 37.5% of the electorate voted for the Kremlin's party in 2003, and a large proportion of its support in parliament came from deputies originally elected as independents. Thus, many commentators believed that the introduction of electoral changes depriving independents of representation would significantly reduce United Russia's parliamentary majority. However, Putin's decision to head the party's list appears to have made the critical difference.

The losses that the party suffered in regional elections earlier this year were not repeated. This time, the party achieved an average of over 50% of the vote in all of Russia's regions, albeit with interesting variations within and between regional divisions:

--In the ethno-autonomous republics, where voting has traditionally been less than free and fair, the party averaged 77.5% of the vote. The case of Chechnya, where United Russia gained 99.3%, was the most extreme.

--By contrast, in the regions (oblasts), which make up most of the country, the party averaged 61%. Within some oblasts, such as the southern region of Voronezh where the CPRF has done well in the past, United Russia's support dipped below 50%.

This was also the case in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Despite the party's strong leadership connections to St. Petersburg--Putin and party leader Boris Gryzlov are both from this city--United Russia achieved its lowest share of the vote there (48% in central St. Petersburg).

With a large majority, United Russia will continue to monopolize all the main posts within the assembly. This arrangement will sustain the Kremlin's control over the lawmaking process. Consequently, the limited debate and scrutiny that came to characterize the previous Duma will continue.

To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica's Web site.

Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit www.oxan.com. To find out how to subscribe to the firm's Daily Brief Service, click here.

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