1993 Russian legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Russia on 12 December 1993.[1] They included the last elections to the Federation Council,[2] with future members appointed by provincial legislatures and governors.

1993 Russian State Duma election

12 December 1993

All 450 seats to the State Duma
226 seats needed for a majority
Turnout54.81% 22.19 pp
  Majority party Minority party Third party
 
Leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky Yegor Gaidar Gennady Zyuganov
Party LDPR Russia's Choice Communist Party
Seats won 64 64 42
Popular vote 12,318,562 8,339,345 6,666,402
Percentage 22.92% 15.51% 12.4%

  Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party
 
Leader Alevtina Fedulova Mikhail Lapshin Grigory Yavlinsky
Party Women of Russia Agrarian Party Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin
Seats won 23 37 27
Popular vote 4,369,918 4,292,518 4,223,219
Percentage 8.13% 8% 7.9%

Elected Chairman

Ivan Rybkin
Agrarian Party

1993 Russian Federation Council election

12 December 1993

All 178 seats to the Federation Council
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Independent Vacant seats
Seats won 171 7
Popular vote 53,751,696
Percentage 100%

Elected Chairman

Vladimir Shumeyko
Independent

Background

The 1993 general election was taking place in the aftermath of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, a violent confrontation on the streets of Moscow which resulted in the dissolution of the previous Russian parliament by military force. Yeltsin hoped to resolve the political turmoil by decreeing for the election to the new Russian parliament and the constitutional referendum to take place on 12 December 1993.

Electoral system

The new election law adopted for the 1993 Duma election stipulated half the 450 Duma members were elected by a party-list system of proportional representation, and half were elected as individual representatives from single-member districts. Every Russian voter thus received two different ballots. The proportional representation ballot compelled each voter to endorse an electoral organization or vote against all of them. By contrast, the single-member district ballot required a voter to endorse an individual, whose party affiliation, if any, could not be given on the ballot.

In order to nominate a list of candidates in the proportional representation ballot, a party or electoral organization had to gather 100,000 signatures from the electorate, of which no more than 15% could be from any one region or republic. The method used to calculate the number of seats won by each party was the Hare method, with a threshold of 5.0 per cent of the valid vote, including votes cast against all, but excluding invalid ballots. To secure a place on a single-member district ballot, candidates had to gather the signatures of at least 1.0 percent of the constituency electorate. The winner in each single-member districts contest was simply the candidate with plurality of votes, regardless of the number of votes cast against all.

Results

State Duma

Party PR Constituency Total
seats
Votes % Seats Votes % Seats
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia12,318,56222.9591,577,4003.0564
Russia's Choice8,339,34515.5403,630,7996.82464
Communist Party of the Russian Federation6,666,40212.4321,848,8883.51042
Women of Russia4,369,9188.121309,3780.6223
Agrarian Party of Russia4,292,5188.0212,877,6105.41637
Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin4,223,2197.9201,849,1203.5727
Party of Russian Unity and Accord3,620,0356.7181,443,4542.7422
Democratic Party of Russia2,969,5335.5141,094,0662.1014
Russian Democratic Reform Movement2,191,5054.101,083,0632.055
Civic Union1,038,1931.901,526,1152.91010
Future of Russia–New Names672,2831.30411,4260.822
Kedr406,7890.80301,2660.611
Dignity and Charity375,4310.70445,1680.833
Other parties377,8630.700
Independents25,961,40548.7130130
Against all2,267,9634.28,509,30016.0
Invalid/blank votes4,248,927
Vacant seats[a]66
Total53,751,69610022557,495,248100225450
Registered voters/turnout106,170,835106,170,83554.2
Source: Nohlen & Stöver, Politika.su

a Five seats in Tatarstan were left vacant due to a low turnout (less than 25%) and were elected at a later date, whilst one seat in Chechnya remained unfilled.[3]

Federation Council

Party Votes % Seats
Independents53,751,696100171
Invalid/blank votes3,946,002
Vacant seats[a]7
Total57,697,698100178
Registered voters/turnout106,170,83554.3
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

a Five seats were elected at a later date, whilst two seats in Chechnya remained unfilled.[4]

Although the Federation Council was contested on a non-party basis,[2] 11 were members of the Communist Party, six were members of Russia's Choice and nine were members of other parties.[5]

Aftermath

The results of the polls proved to be disappointing for the Kremlin: the two competing pro-government parties, Russia's Choice and the Party of Russian Unity and Accord, gained 15.5% and 6.7% of the vote respectively and won 123 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. Neither party was able to control the parliamentary agenda nor impose the will of the president on the Duma. Lacking legislative success, both parties rapidly lost membership.

Parliamentary groups

The use of the mixed system for the election of the Duma produced a large number of deputies which were unaffiliated with any electoral bloc. By joining other parliamentary groups or forming groups of independent deputies, they could significantly influence the balance of power in the Duma. Hence, the parliamentary groups in the first two-year term of the Duma showed lack of stability and its numbers may be given only with approximation.

Parliamentary group Leader Seats
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky 53-64
Russia's Choice Yegor Gaidar 47-78
Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov 45-47
Women of Russia Yekaterina Lakhova 20-24
Agrarian Party of Russia Mikhail Lapshin 50-55
Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky 27-28
Party of Russian Unity and Accord Sergey Shakhray 12-34
Democratic Party of Russia Nikolay Travkin 8-15
Liberal Democratic Union of 12 December Irina Khakamada 11-38
New Regional Politics - Duma-96 V. Medvedev 30-67
Russia I. Shichalin 34-38
Stability A. Leushkin 34-40
Russian Way (unregistered) Sergei Baburin 11-14
Strong State (Derzhava) (unregistered) V. Kobelev 4-5

References

  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1642 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Nohlen & Stöver, p1656
  3. Результаты выборов в Думу I созыва (in Russian).
  4. Nohlen & Stöver, p1659
  5. Nohlen & Stöver, p1658
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