Russian legislative election, 1993

Russian legislative election, 1993

12 December 1993
All 450 seats to the State Duma 226 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Yegor Gaidar Vladimir Zhirinovsky Gennady Zyuganov Party Russia's Choice LDPR Communist Party Seats won 96 70 65 Popular vote 8,339,345 12,318,562 6,666,402 Percentage 15.51% 22.92% 12.4%

Parliamentary elections were held in Russia on 12 December 1993. They included the last elections to the Federation Council of Russia.

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	12,318,562	22.9	59	1,577,400	3.0	11	70
Russia's Choice	8,339,345	15.5	40	3,630,799	6.8	56	96
Communist Party	6,666,402	12.4	32	1,848,888	3.5	33	65
Women of Russia	4,369,918	8.1	21	309,378	0.6	4	25
Agrarian Party	4,292,518	8.0	21	2,877,610	5.4	26	47
Yabloko	4,223,219	7.9	20	1,849,120	3.5	13	33
Party of Russian Unity and Accord	3,620,035	6.7	18	1,443,454	2.7	9	27
Democratic Party	2,969,533	5.5	14	1,094,066	2.1	7	21
Russian Democratic Reform Movement	2,191,505	4.1	0	1,083,063	2.0	8	8
Civic Union	1,038,193	1.9	0	1,526,115	2.9	18	18
Future of Russia–New Names	672,283	1.3	0	411,426	0.8	1	1
Cedar	406,789	0.8	0	301,266	0.6	0	0
Dignity and Charity	375,431	0.7	0	445,168	0.8	3	3
Other parties	–	–	–	377,863	0.7	0	0
Independents	–	–	–	25,961,405	48.7	30	30
Against all	2,267,963	4.2	–	8,509,300	16.0	–	–
Invalid/blank votes		–	–	4,248,927	–	–	–
Vacant seats	–	–	–	–	–	6	6
Total	53,751,696	100	225	57,495,248	100	225	450
Registered voters/turnout	106,170,835		–	106,170,835	54.2	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver, IPU

^a Four seats were left vacant in Chechnya due to a boycott of the elections, whilst voting was postponed in two others.

Federation Council

Party	Votes	%	Seats
Independents	53,751,696	100	171
Invalid/blank votes	3,946,002	–	–
Vacant seats	–	–	7
Total	57,697,698	100	178
Registered voters/turnout	106,170,835	54.3	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

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

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

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		Sergei Shakhrai	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

External links

• Russian general elections (Dead Link)