Vladimir V. Putin Orders Change in Election Rules
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin has ordered a change in the rules for parliamentary elections, a move that could help solidify his power and influence at the end of his current term and isolate him from falling public support for the United Russia party, which nominated him, and currently has a majority in parliament.
On orders from Mr. Putin, the half of the 450 seats in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, filled with a proportional system based on voting for parties, where each party fills the seats allocated. The other half will be filled by direct election of individual candidates, creating a potential opening for independent campaigns.
The new system, the Central Election Commission is expected to unveil the next few weeks, replacing a strict party-list vote. It would be the second major change to the parliamentary voting in less than ten years, and is essentially a return to a system that had been in place during 2003. The proposal also comes just a year after allegations of widespread fraud in the parliamentary elections in December 2011, a large wave of street protests in Moscow.
But while the prospect of individual applications suggests a liberalization of the political system often criticized heavily tilted in favor of Mr Putin and the government, history shows that they can actually have the opposite effect.
In neighboring Ukraine, helped the adoption of a mixed electoral system, as proposed by Mr Putin, President Viktor Yanukovych F. the Party of Regions to win more seats in the election this fall, despite opinion polls - and even election results - which showed support for the party had fallen across the country.
In 2007, under a system of proportional representation in the electoral lists of the Party of Regions won 175 seats with 34.4 percent of the vote. In 2012 won the Party of Regions only 30 percent of proportional representation, but now has 209 seats with victories in each district by its own nominated or self-employed, who joined the group later.
Under the new rules, both conditions of Duma members and the President extended after parliamentary elections Russian elections in December 2016, and will be followed by a presidential election in March 2018.
"We are seven political parties had at the beginning of this year, and now we have 48, if I'm not mistaken, plus there are more than 200 organizers working for their own political parties to set up," Mr. Putin said in speech. "The authorities should strive to ensure that they all have the same rights."
But election experts said there is reason to be skeptical. Arkady Lubaryev, director of a project on the development of the Russian electoral law for Golos, the country's only independent election monitoring group, said the organization supported a mixed electoral system, but the one proposed by Mr. Putin.
"We face a mixed coupled system similar to the system of elections to the Bundestag," said Mr. Lubaryev, which means that each party would receive only as many seats as the proportion of the votes. "But we are against the restoration of the mixed interconnected system that was in force, because it gives United Russia - and any party that more than 30 percent support it -. For the representation received through victories in single-member constituencies districts"
Matthew Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, suggested that Putin would Ukraine as a model, especially with the threat of the protest movement in mind.
"Putin is not a man to take risks, and the last year has shown potential for destabilizing forces quickly gaining momentum," he said. "The value of the party of power in the internal office system mixed with party list is that it can dilute the impact of a nationwide protest vote."
On orders from Mr. Putin, the half of the 450 seats in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, filled with a proportional system based on voting for parties, where each party fills the seats allocated. The other half will be filled by direct election of individual candidates, creating a potential opening for independent campaigns.
The new system, the Central Election Commission is expected to unveil the next few weeks, replacing a strict party-list vote. It would be the second major change to the parliamentary voting in less than ten years, and is essentially a return to a system that had been in place during 2003. The proposal also comes just a year after allegations of widespread fraud in the parliamentary elections in December 2011, a large wave of street protests in Moscow.
But while the prospect of individual applications suggests a liberalization of the political system often criticized heavily tilted in favor of Mr Putin and the government, history shows that they can actually have the opposite effect.
In neighboring Ukraine, helped the adoption of a mixed electoral system, as proposed by Mr Putin, President Viktor Yanukovych F. the Party of Regions to win more seats in the election this fall, despite opinion polls - and even election results - which showed support for the party had fallen across the country.
In 2007, under a system of proportional representation in the electoral lists of the Party of Regions won 175 seats with 34.4 percent of the vote. In 2012 won the Party of Regions only 30 percent of proportional representation, but now has 209 seats with victories in each district by its own nominated or self-employed, who joined the group later.
Under the new rules, both conditions of Duma members and the President extended after parliamentary elections Russian elections in December 2016, and will be followed by a presidential election in March 2018.
"We are seven political parties had at the beginning of this year, and now we have 48, if I'm not mistaken, plus there are more than 200 organizers working for their own political parties to set up," Mr. Putin said in speech. "The authorities should strive to ensure that they all have the same rights."
But election experts said there is reason to be skeptical. Arkady Lubaryev, director of a project on the development of the Russian electoral law for Golos, the country's only independent election monitoring group, said the organization supported a mixed electoral system, but the one proposed by Mr. Putin.
"We face a mixed coupled system similar to the system of elections to the Bundestag," said Mr. Lubaryev, which means that each party would receive only as many seats as the proportion of the votes. "But we are against the restoration of the mixed interconnected system that was in force, because it gives United Russia - and any party that more than 30 percent support it -. For the representation received through victories in single-member constituencies districts"
Matthew Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, suggested that Putin would Ukraine as a model, especially with the threat of the protest movement in mind.
"Putin is not a man to take risks, and the last year has shown potential for destabilizing forces quickly gaining momentum," he said. "The value of the party of power in the internal office system mixed with party list is that it can dilute the impact of a nationwide protest vote."
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