CIAO DATE: 2/99

The Democratic Presumption:
An Assessment of Democratization in Russia 1994–1998

Matthew Lantz

September 1998

International Security Program
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA)
Harvard University

Preface

In the seven years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy in Russia has experienced many triumphs and failures. From the high watershed of successful presidential elections in the Summer of 1996 to the low points of armed conflict erupting between the President and the Parliament in October 1993, the assault on Chechnya in 1994, and the financial crisis in August 1998, logical arguments can be made that Russia’s democratic glass is either half-full or half-empty.

Beginning in 1990, Harvard’s Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI) has closely followed events affecting Russian political development. Since 1994, SDI’s Russian Political Party-Building Program has worked with over 100 Duma members from all political factions, offering technical assistance in party-building and campaigning techniques; and has hosted numerous Russian political activists, including Grigory Yavlinsky, Yegor Gaidar, Irina Khakamada, Sergei Belyaev, Vladimir Lukin, Yuri Boldyrev, Alexander Vengerovsky, and members of the Boris Yeltsin and Grigory Yavlinsky presidential campaign teams. SDI has distributed its Political Party and Campaigning Handbook to all major Russian factions competing in the 1995 Duma elections, and its bi-monthly Russian Election Watch in 1995–1997 has informed Western observers of important developments leading up to the Duma, presidential, and regional elections.

Because of our close work with the Russian political scene and our unique access to major players making decisions that affect Russian democracy, SDI has been asked by colleagues in Russia and the United States to produce this report assessing the progress of Russian political democratization since 1994. The material and information used to compile the report has been collected in the course of four years of background research on Russian political developments and many meetings, frank discussions, and interviews with leading Russian political figures and grassroots activists.

Our activities have corresponded with an extraordinary period in Russian democratization. In October 1994, when SDI initiated its Russian Political Party-Building Program, there were serious doubts about the likelihood of Russian parliamentary elections occurring in December 1995, let alone Russian presidential elections taking place in June 1996. However, by the end of 1996, Russia had successfully navigated its second parliamentary elections, first presidential elections as an independent country, and over 50 regional gubernatorial elections a remarkable achievement.

Yet much remains to be done, and today’s Russian democracy still has its critics. Writing in Le Monde on November 26, 1996, Nobel prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn painted a bleak view of present-day Russian democracy. He maintained that the current Russian leadership is no better than the former Communist one and that "nothing resembling democracy currently exists in Russia." Solzhenitsyn argued that Russia is ruled by an elite clique of 150 to 200 individuals drawn from former members of the Soviet establishment and "new Russians." In Solzhenitsyn’s view, the state is still not accountable to Russian society and the Russian press remains under tight state control. The collapse of the Russian economy in August 1998 furthered such skepticism about the progress of Russian democracy. The "crony capitalism" of insider deals and corruption that has plagued Russian society was seen by most observers to have hindered the country’s transition to a market economy and democratic stability.

So is the Russian democratic transition on track or not? In this report, produced by the Coordinator of SDI’s Russian Political Party-Building Program, Research Associate Matthew Lantz, we address two key issues to determine the answer to this question. First, we assess Russian political democratization since 1994, based on SDI’s observations in the field. In these critical years that have seen the first series of truly free, democratic elections for parliament, the President, and governors, how much progress has been made in establishing elections and political parties? Second, we investigate to what extent Western assistance to Russian democratization has made a difference. What has been done, how important has that assistance been, and what lessons can be learned from Western assistance experiences? By addressing these issues of Russian political democratization and Western assistance, we arrive at a better understanding of how far Russia has progressed in its transition to becoming a fully democratic state, and what role organizations such as SDI can, or can not, play in this transition.

Harvard’s Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project works to catalyze support for three historic transformations taking place in Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union: to sustainable democracies, market economies, and cooperative international relations. The Project is a private, non-profit research initiative funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York. Views expressed by individuals associated with the Project represent their own professional judgments and are not offered on behalf of any governments or other institutions.

Graham Allison, Director

 

 

Introduction

A. A Definition of Democracy

The starting point for any serious assessment of Russian democratization is a definition of democracy. Unfortunately, at least for our purposes, two and a half millennia after Athens, democracy still remains a complex concept and a subject of debate. The dean of modern studies of democracy, Professor Robert Dahl, concludes that, "democracy becomes essentially an ideal, a political system that is completely or almost completely responsible to all its citizens." Reflecting on the complexity of democracy and the number of dimensions included under the term democracy, Dahl therefore finds it necessary to invent a separate concept by focusing on two of the most important dimensions of democracy, the degree of public contestation of government conduct and the breadth of the right to participate in this process. His new term, polyarchy, refers to a political system with high degrees of both political competition and inclusiveness. ₁

Our purpose in this study is not to enter into the scholarly debate about the dimensions of democracy or polyarchy. Rather, for our limited purposes of assessing the status of Russian political development and Western assistance to that cause, we have chosen to use Joseph Schumpeter’s definition, which states that democracy requires three essential conditions: 1) meaningful and extensive competition among individuals and organized groups (especially political parties) for all effective positions of government power at regular intervals excluding the use of force; 2) a "highly inclusive" level of political participation in the selection of leaders and policies, at least through regular and fair elections, so that no major (adult) social group is excluded; and 3) a level of civil and political liberties freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to form and join organizations sufficient to ensure the integrity of political competition and participation.

Because of SDI’s unique background working with Russian elections and political party development, we have limited our focus to Russian political democratization. However, the components of a democracy go well beyond elections and political parties. As Michael McFaul of Stanford University has noted, other components include: pluralist institutions, mass-based interest groups, an independent judiciary, rule of law, guarantees of human rights, a free and independent media, and independent trade unions. ₂

 

B. Criteria for Evaluating Russian Political Democratization

In order to assess the status of Russian political democracy, the starting point is one of the criteria and yardsticks to be used in judging whether the glass is closer to full or empty. This section sets out the criteria SDI uses in the following chapters for evaluating Russian elections, Russian political parties, and Western assistance to Russian political development.

1. Criteria for Elections

Although there remains some disagreement about the criteria for measuring electoral democracy, Freedom House’s political rights checklist provides a good starting point. Since the 1970’s, the New York-based Freedom House has evaluated the status of democracy and freedom throughout the world in its annual Comparative Survey of Freedom. In rating the extent to which democracy and freedom exist within each country throughout the world, Freedom House has developed a basic checklist for political rights and for civil liberties. The political checklist attempts to measure the extent to which a political system offers the voter the chance to make a free choice among competing candidates and to what extent the candidates are chosen independently of the state.

In establishing our Project’s criteria for measuring for evaluating Russian elections and their impact on Russian political development, we have used Freedom House’s political checklist to which we have made several adaptations ₃ :

• Is the head of state and/or head of government or other chief authority chosen through free and fair elections?
• Are the legislative representatives chosen through free and fair elections?
• Are regional leaders chosen through free and fair elections?
• Are the "rules of the game" for the election free and fair including: fair electoral laws, equal campaigning opportunities, fair access to poll sites, and honest tabulation of ballots?
• To what extent do citizens have the right to vote and to what extent do they exercise that right?
• Is there a significant opposition vote, de facto opposition power, and a relatively realistic possibility for the opposition to increase its support or gain power through elections?
• Are the people free from domination by the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?

2. Criteria for the Status of Russia’s Political Party System

The definition of political parties and their importance to democratization is an even larger subject of debate among political scientists than the criteria of democracy. Parties and party systems differ so greatly from country to country that a standardized definition is difficult to come by. Scholars agree that no modern functioning democracy exists today without political parties of some sort, but how to define those parties and how important parties are to modern democracies is an area of great contention.

Again, our purpose in this study is not to enter into this debate. Clearly political parties play a role in democratic society and in order for Russia to succeed as a democracy, some sort of functioning political party system must exist. For our purposes of assessing the Russian political party system, we will rely on V. O. Key’s classical conception of parties that distinguishes among parties within the electorate, parties as organizations, and parties within the government. ₄ Based on these distinctions, we have created a list of questions to assist us in evaluating how far Russian political parties have come since their emergence in the late 1980s.

A. Parties in the Electorate:

• To what extent do parties represent and communicate an orientation, basic values, and preferences sufficient for citizens to distinguish among them and find a party with which they more or less agree?
• To what extent do voters associate themselves with or join a political party?
• To what extent do parties, once in government, deliver on promises made to the electorate? Are the voters able to endow their freely elected representatives with real power?

B. Parties as Organizations:

• To what extent do parties exist as established organizations? How extensive is the active cadre as a percentage of the electorate? How active are the cadre members at every level of the political organization?
• How extensively are parties organized on a regional and local level?

C. Parties in Government:

• What percentage of those elected to office affiliate themselves with a political party?
• To what extent are leadership positions within the legislature determined by party affiliation?
• To what extent do legislators vote along party lines?

3. Criteria for Evaluating Western Assistance to Russian Political Development

For the past seven years, Western organizations have worked to assist Russia with its transition to democracy. In the political realm, much of this Western assistance has been directed toward building political parties, organizing and running elections, and building relations with the Russian parliament. Based on our review of others’ assessments of Western assistance, including, in particular, the General Accounting Office’s report, Promoting Democracy; Progress Report on U.S. Democratic Assistance to Russia (GAO/NSIA 96–40), we see the key questions that must be asked to evaluate Western political development assistance as:

• What Western political development assistance has been provided? (independent variable)
• How effectively have Western organizations adapted their programs and material to Russian realities?
• How much coordination exists between Western political development programs? Where have the programs been complementary and where have they overlapped?
• What (if any) are the results of specific Western assistance efforts? Dependent variables of particular interest include:
  Russian election law as written and adopted
  1. Political campaign strategy and organization (scheduling, spending, polling, media relations, campaign structure)
  2. Political party organization
  3. Success of candidates
  4. Voter turnout
  5. The procedure and thus the fairness of voting
  6. The procedure and thus the fairness of vote counting
  7. Election monitoring

 

C. Lessons of Russian Democratization from 1994–1998

Based on the criteria identified above, our assessment proposes that progress in Russian political democratization over the past two years merits the judgment "half-full" rather than "half-empty," an admittedly minority view these days. We believe that despite many significant defects, notable accomplishments have been achieved in Russia’s transition to democracy. When compared with most experts’ and pundits’ declarations about what was possible and impossible, or most measurable expectations about what could be achieved, the extent of Russian democratization over this period has been extraordinary. Yet at the same time, we recognize that Russia’s emerging democracy is still a work in progress.

In general, we argue that the democratic presumption, albeit uneven and in fits and starts, is taking hold in Russia. By the democratic presumption, we mean the expectation that the normal and appropriate way to answer the question "who governs?" is to have an open competition where the candidate who receives the most votes wins, and the winners thereby acquire positions of political power. In the past four years, Russia has announced and held elections for parliament, the President, and governors. Not one of the elections has been canceled. The rules regarding campaigns and elections have been followed more or less and winners have not been barred from taking office ₅ . In effect, across almost the entire political spectrum, people currently believe that democratic elections are the right way to determine who governs. Even at the height of the Russian financial crisis in 1998, coups were not being discussed as realistic. As intense as the confrontations between the executive and parliament have been, both sides have still attempted to solve their differences using the constitution, so that new elections can be held in 1999 and 2000 in a legal and orderly manner.

One can observe from the elections of 1995 and 1996 that Russian campaigns and electoral behavior are becoming increasingly normalized to Western standards. Television dominates the biggest elections; the electorate votes against what they do not like; campaigns are increasingly professional; campaign messages are manipulated; and campaign organization and financing is important. Russia’s elections are coming to resemble their Western counterparts both for good or for ill. However, although elections and campaigns are regular and open, election campaigning has been more free than fair. Abuse of incumbency has become a particular problem in Russia and the elections of 1998 show a continuation in this trend. The bottom line of a true democracy is the willingness for the loser to accept defeat in an election. The quip that the Communists may be the biggest democrats has some merit. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov conceded defeat in the July 1996 presidential race. It is doubtful President Boris Yeltsin would have.

Although elections show considerable progress toward a functioning Russian democracy, Russian political parties have developed more slowly than anticipated. The large majority of Russian parties lack connections to the populace and significant regional organizations. While most Russian citizens have a preference for a system of government with strong but democratically elected leadership, they do not feel loyal to any particular party that endorses such a system. ₆ Meanwhile, the Russian President continues to be considered above political parties and partisan politics. Why the slow party development? Among the key factors: lack of a civil society encouraging individual participation in political affairs; negative associations with the concept and even the word "party" resulting from 70 years of Communist party rule; and the unwillingness of similarly-minded politicians to form an ideologically-based political party because of personal ambitions.

Today’s Russian parties exist at various levels of development. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation exhibits all the attributes of a fully-developed political party, including regional organization, followers, coherent political views, and multiple leaders. Less developed is the government-sponsored party, Nash Dom Rossiya (Our Home is Russia), which unites elites who have a stake in continued support for the government and which tries to drum up popular support for the status quo. This party has few active members beyond those with a stake in the system. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) is heavily reliant on its leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and although it has financial resources, has demonstrated outstanding political campaigns, and has some regional organization, it stands for little beyond self-promotion. Yabloko, on the other hand, while also closely identified with its leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, has a coherent agenda and takes principled stands on issues; however, the party lacks resources. Other parties in Russia are at even lesser levels of development and are often merely campaign organizations for individuals.

What does the future hold for the nascent Russian political party system? The political party system is likely to remain underdeveloped for the next several years. Economic and societal stabilization, continued elections, and especially a stable, unchanging electoral law, will all play major roles in the establishment what type of political party system emerges.

Finally, we propose that Western assistance has played a role in Russian democratization only at the margins, but margins can matter. Perhaps the largest impact of the West is reflected in the rapid acceptance of the democratic presumption. The ascendancy of this presumption is a consequence of many factors including the Soviet Union’s demonstration of the disadvantages of the Communist alternative, the absence of effective advocates of alternative presumptions, the flood of information from the West asserting democracy as the norm, and the direct experiences of Russians who have traveled to and studied in established democracies.

Western assistance has proved most effective when conveyed as part of sustained personal relationships of mutual trust. These relationships allow the lessons of international experience to be communicated to individuals at their "learning moment" the point at which recipients know they have a challenge to overcome and are searching for viable solutions. The importance of opportunities for Russians to "look and see" how particular things are done in the West, and the direct experience of seeing for themselves are underestimated in Western assistance. The importance of Western "tourists" going to Moscow, meeting people they have never met before, advising individuals on subjects that are not at the forefront of the recipients’ needs is exaggerated. Even more so, when these tourists’ instruction is conveyed through a bad translator, and with accompanying material offered in a language the recipient does not speak.

Some aspects of Western assistance to Russian democratization are straightforward, where something specific is required and Western material and experience can be easily adapted to the Russian scene. Here, an impact can be made directly and almost immediately. For example, some lines in the Russian Constitution and election law are literal translations of laws that are in effect elsewhere. In other cases, where the requirement is less clear and Western assistance is more indirect, the impact of assistance may not be felt immediately. For instance, with or without Western assistance, the Russian political party system will take years to emerge. It is important to remember that, in many cases, Russia is trying create institutions "overnight" that have evolved in the West over decades or even centuries. However, the lack of immediate results does not make Western assistance irrelevant. Patience and long-term engagement are necessary in such cases.

In a phrase, Russian democracy is a "work in progress" — but it is progressing. While political party development may be lagging, Russians have a right to be proud of their recent elections, including the first presidential election in their thousand-year history. The 1995 parliamentary, 1996 presidential, and subsequent gubernatorial elections were a major step toward the normalization of Russian democracy. For the first time in their history, Russians had the right to throw their leaders out, and for the first time, in the case of the presidential election, the sitting leader of the country subjected himself to the will of the people. Contrary to dire predictions heard earlier in 1994 and 1995, the elections did take place and proceeded peacefully with the losing candidates accepting the victory of the winning candidates. While not totally free and fair, the election achieved a remarkable level of openness for the country’s stage of transition. With their first set of major elections behind them, the Russian people must focus on the continuing task at hand: consolidating the country’s democratic gains.

 

 

Chapter One: Elections and Russian Democracy

Introduction

When the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project began working directly with Russian political parties and studying Russian elections in 1994, it was unclear whether Russia would even conduct its scheduled parliamentary and presidential elections. Rumors abounded that President Yeltsin, foreseeing an unfavorable outcome in both elections, would find a reason to postpone the elections until the economic situation in Russia stabilized. The consequences of such actions for Russian democracy would have been disastrous.

To Yeltsin’s credit, four years later, in the Summer of 1998, Russia has not only weathered its second Duma elections, in which opposition candidates won over half of the seats, but also its first presidential election as an independent country, in which for the first time in 1000 years, the Russian people were allowed to freely elect their leader.

Subsequently, Russians have gone to the polls on numerous occasions in local and regional elections to elect governors, legislatures, and mayors. The habit of voting in competitive elections has become an accepted part of Russian society. These successful elections have constituted the single greatest achievement of the Yeltsin Presidency — the acceptance by the Russian citizens and leaders of the democratic presumption. By democratic presumption we mean the expectation that the normal and appropriate way to answer the question "Who governs?" is to have an open competition where the candidate who receives the most votes win, and the winners thereby acquire positions of political power. Throughout Russia today, candidates of all political hues are aspiring to leadership by preparing for elections, not by plotting coups. There is little debate about the postponement of the 1999 Duma elections and 2000 presidential elections. Pre-election maneuvering has already begun. Elections are now an accepted way of life for the Russian people.

This is not to say that Russian elections have been perfect. As this chapter will show, threats, some growing, still exist for Russian elections. Unfair campaign practices and open hints of unilateral changes to the election law to the benefit the government demonstrate that although the big question of "should we hold an election?" has largely been answered, the more nuanced question of "how should we conduct the election?" is still open for interpretation.

This chapter draws on the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project’s four years of activities focused on Russian elections. Over that time period, we have had direct contact with every major Russian party and most major Russian presidential campaigns.

A note on our methodology: to gain a better understanding of Russian elections over the last four years and what they have meant to Russian democracy, we have adapted Freedom House’s standard criteria for evaluating the political freedom of a county. We begin by asking, "Is the head of state elected through free and fair elections?" In this case we review and evaluate the 1996 Russian Presidential election and its impact on Russian democracy. Many of these conclusions originally appeared in Graham Allison’s and Matthew Lantz’s Harvard International Reviewarticle on the Russian presidential elections in the Winter 1996/7 issue.

We next conduct a similar review and evaluation of the 1995 Duma election, asking in Freedom House’s words, "Is the parliament elected through free and fair elections?" Many of these conclusions appeared in Sergei Grigoriev’s and Matthew Lantz’s article in the U.S. journal, Demokratizatsiya, in the Spring issue of 1996.

We then turn to the conduct of the regional elections since the conclusion of the 1996 Presidential election. While not evaluating every regional election, we cover the trends that have emerged from these elections and how they have affected Russian democracy. Because these elections are the most recent held in Russia, it is useful to study their conduct as a way of looking ahead to the 1999–2000 election cycle.

It is certainly not enough merely to conduct elections — the majority of states, even repressive ones, hold elections. Elections were common in the old Soviet Union, where the outcome was predetermined. As Stalin is reported to have said, "It does not matter who votes, but who counts." Freedom House therefore asks, "are the rules of the election free and fair?" In this section we also address both the rules by which the elections are conducted and the actual conduct of the elections themselves.

Finally, a definitive watershed in the course of a democratic transition is the transfer of power from one ruling set to an opposition group. This signifies a confidence that laws and democratic principles have been accepted by all players. Many former Soviet bloc states have crossed that threshold; however, with the reelection of Boris Yeltsin in 1996, Russia has yet to reach this point. The 2000 elections may allow an opportunity for Russia to transfer power to an opposition leader or group. The last part of this chapter thus considers the status of the Russian opposition and asks the Freedom House question, "is there a significant opposition vote, de facto opposition power, and a realistic opportunity for the opposition to gain power?"

We conclude first that on the whole the Russian elections over the last four years have been Russia’s greatest achievement to date on its road to democracy, in that they have established the democratic presumption among the Russian electorate. Second, for better or worse, Russian campaigns and election behavior are becoming increasingly normalized to Western standards: TV dominates the biggest elections, campaigns are increasingly professional, campaign messages are manipulated, and campaign organizations are important. Third, although elections and campaigns are regular and open, election campaigning has been more free than fair. This trend is increasing as Russia meanders its way through its regional elections. Fourth, although Russia has an identifiable, albeit split opposition, and candidates from opposition parties are likely to win the majority of the next Duma’s seats, it is still undetermined whether a true opposition candidate will be allowed to capture the Russian Presidency.

 

A. Is the Head of State Elected Through Free and Fair Elections?

The 1996 Russian Presidential election was watched the world over as a sign of the health of Russian democratization. The successful completion of the election would signify that although Russian democratization had proceeded in fits and starts over the five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country was, on the whole, on the right path. Alternatively, should the election be canceled altogether, or should the election be held under less than free and fair conditions, this would be a sign that Russia’s claims to be a country transitioning to democracy were largely rhetorical, and the true Russia state was more aptly symbolized by the country that shelled its own legislature in October 1993.

In 1000 years of Russian history, the Russian citizens had never been allowed to choose their own leader as head of state. From Tsars to Communist Party leaders, leadership of Russia was left to blood lines or to internal politics. Even Boris Yeltsin’s first election as President of Russia in 1991 occurred when Russia was still a constituent part of the Soviet Union, and Yeltsin, while head of Russia, was not the head of an independent country at the time of election. 1996 would be the first opportunity for the Russian people to elect their own head of state. It was the first time in Russian history that Russians had the right to throw their incumbent leader out, and it was also the first time that a sitting leader subjected himself to the will of the people.

The Russian Constitution, election law, and the Russian presidential election:

The Russian Constitution, adopted in 1993, was clear on the rules for the election. To be elected the President of Russia, one must be a Russian citizen, be 35 years old and have lived in the country for 10 years. No Russian president can serve more than two four-year terms in succession. The election is to be held on the Sunday after the current term of the sitting President expires. If no candidate competing in the first round of the election gains more than 50% of the vote, a second round must be held within 15 days of the official announcement of results, which the Central Election Commission should announce within 15 days of the election. In the second round of the election, the two candidates who gain the most votes in the first round square off against each other. In the second round, whoever gets the most votes, a simple plurality, wins. In both rounds, a "none of the above" appears on the ballot, and should "none of the above" gain more votes than all of the candidates, the election will be rejected and a new election must be called.

For the 1996 presidential campaign, candidates had to pre-register with the Justice Ministry with the support of a campaign organization. Once the candidates had been approved, the campaign organization needed to collect 100,000 signatures for the candidate to appear on the ballot. No more than 3% of these signatures could come from any one constituent part of Russia. After the signatures were submitted and approved by the Central Election Commission, the candidate could begin officially campaigning. During the campaign, candidates received government funds of $41,500 ₇ . Candidates were also promised free air time on national and regional TV and radio. The spending limit on presidential campaigns was set at $2.9 million. All candidates had to keep their campaign funds in special Sberbank government bank accounts and had to submit financial statements. Campaign contributions were limited to $600 by individuals and $60,000 by corporations and groups. Foreign contributions were not allowed.

While all of these laws seem clear cut, as we will see in the "free and fair election" section below, often these rules were viewed more as helpful hints on how to get elected president than mandatory guidelines which could disqualify a candidate should they be violated.

Summary of the 1996 Presidential Campaign and Election:

Fifteen candidates were officially registered by the Central Election Commission to run for the Russian presidency. The major candidates included the incumbent, Boris Yeltsin; Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov; blunt-speaking former General Alexander Lebed; liberal opposition candidate and Duma faction leader Grigory Yavlinsky; the "bad-boy" of Russian politics, Vladimir Zhirinovsky; world-famous eye surgeon Syvatoslav Fedorov; former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev; and a handful of less well known candidates. After six months of heated campaigning, the final results of the first round of the election held on June 16, 1998 showed:

Yeltsin	35.28%
Zyuganov	32.03%
Lebed	14.52%
Yavlinsky	7.34%
Zhirinovsky	5.70%
Fedorov	92%
Gorbachev	51%

Voter turnout was a strong 69.8%. A second round for the election between Yeltsin and Zyuganov was scheduled for three weeks later on Wednesday, July 3. Traditionally, Russian elections were held on Sunday, but the Yeltsin team, fearing that their voters would leave town to go work in their dachas and not return to vote, set the election for mid-week. Zyuganov, surprisingly and perhaps unwisely, agreed to the date.

In the second round of the election, Yeltsin won handily, despite disappearing from view a week before the election with a "respiratory ailment." When the Central Election Commission reported the final results of the second round, they showed:

Yeltsin	53.82% (40,208,384)
Zyuganov	40.31% (30,113,306)
None of the Above	4.83% ( 3,604, 550)

Again, as in the first round, voter turn out was a strong 68.89%. As in the first round results, Yeltsin had run strongest in the large cites, where reforms had taken hold, and in the north and far east. Zyuganov had gained the most votes in the so-called "red belt" — the depressed agricultural and rural areas across Russia’s south. Domestic and international observers gave their blessing to the election, saying that it met international standards, and Gennady Zyuganov accepted the election results issuing a statement wishing President Yeltsin well. "I congratulate you on your success at the polls. I hope that the common efforts of all of society’s social and political forces will lift Russia out of its current crisis and guarantee her people the best, most dignified, freest, happiest and richest of futures," said Zyuganov.

Yet, the numbers and the results do not explain what happened during the campaign itself, which is important to understanding Russian elections and therefore the future of Russian democracy.

Why Yeltsin Won:

At the start of the presidential campaign in January 1996, Yeltsin’s victory was by no means guaranteed. In fact, the sitting Russian President looked increasingly vulnerable. In the December 1995 Duma elections, nine out of ten voters had voted against the pro-government party running. Polls showed Yeltsin’s popularity ratings languishing at 6%, and he had just fired Anatoly Chubais, the fulcrum of his pro-reform team.

Nevertheless, six months later, in a largely free vote, Yeltsin gained 35% of the vote in the first round, leading all challengers, and 54% of the vote in the second. How did the turnaround take place?

The Yeltsin campaign was won by changing the terms of the debate. His team correctly recognized that Russian voters feared the past as much as they disliked the present. In an extraordinary move of political jujitsu, the Yeltsin campaign made the issue not a referendum on Yeltsin and his economic policies of the last four years, but rather a referendum on Communism.

In most American elections the outcome is decided by the answer to the question Ronald Reagan stated best in his 1980 presidential campaign: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" The best simple predictor of votes in any district is whether voters’ real income has increased in the six months prior to the election. When the answer is no, they almost always vote the "ins" out. Had this been the issue in the Russian election, Yeltsin would have lost significantly, as 80% of Russians judged themselves or were judged to be economically worse off than they were before Yeltsin came to power.

Fundamentally, the Yeltsin campaign succeeded because it turned this question on its head. The dominant question in voter’s minds’ instead became, "if the Communists return to power, will you be better off six months, or four years hence?" The people voted not for Yeltsin, but against Zyuganov. (Lest this Russian behavior seem unique, recall the observation about the 1980 U.S. election that Jimmy Carter would have lost even more votes had he run unopposed.)

A second, related strand of the successful Yeltsin campaign strategy equated Zyuganov and the Communists with not only the bad old days of food lines and gulags, but also with instability in Russia immediately ahead. While this theme was sounded subtly at the beginning of the campaign, television ads in the final days of the campaign before the second round bluntly declared that, "nobody thought in 1917 that whole families would be executed and whole peoples destroyed. Save and preserve Russia, do not permit the Red Troubles."

Combined with these powerful and effective campaign themes, Yeltsin had a number of secondary aspects to his campaign which helped to reinforce these ideas and ensured his election.

One factor was the change in public perceptions of Yeltsin during the campaign. Over the six months leading up to the election, Yeltsin experienced a phoenix-like resurrection. In January 1996, most Russians saw their President as old, sick, and drunk — a spent force. During the spring campaign, after members of his new, younger campaign team showed Yeltsin pictures of himself in 1991 as a man of the people, and compared them to the Yeltsin of 1996, the President began to demonstrate sobriety, focus, and energetic leadership — symbolized by more than 30 trips to Russia’s far flung regions and dancing on stage at pro-Yeltsin rock concerts. This energy continued until a week before the second round when the President disappeared from public view (and was later revealed after the election to have suffered a heart attack).

Another factor assisting Yeltsin was his promise to address important issues facing Russia. This was demonstrated when on his arrival in a region, Yeltsin would announce, "my pockets are full," and in the manner of the old Tsars, would dispense patronage and promises, including payments of back wages, vacations, reconstruction of churches, tax relief, and whatever else his campaign managers identified as likely to induce support.

More substantially he undertook nation-wide to address the burning unpopular issues of the day. Yeltsin announced that the chronic wage arrears problem would be solved by the election. He also signed a peace agreement to end the unpopular war in Chechnya culminating with him flying dramatically into Chechnya in May. Yeltsin was also not above making populist statements, such as declaring the creation of an all-volunteer army by the year 2000. Many of these campaign promises went unfulfilled once he was reelected, but during the campaign, they helped to cultivate an image of a President who understood what the people wanted and was willing to deliver on his promises.

The Russian media also played a large part in Yeltsin’s victory. The Yeltsin campaign succeeded in enlisting the national TV channels (ORT, RTR, NTV) and most of the print media as agents in campaigning to defeat Yeltsin’s Communist rival. Why would a hitherto fairly independent media, and one that had been critical of the President just a year before regarding his policies in Chechnya agree to support the President’s reelection? The reasons are complicated.

First, the campaign persuaded most journalists of their own vital self-interest in preventing a return of the Communists. A Communist victory, it was said, could lead to the end of Russia’s free press. As one journalist explained to the SDI director in Moscow, "I’m not sure the West understands that a political battle without any rules is raging in Russia. If the Communists win, the media will lose its independence, we have no choice." ₈

Second, the government continued to own two of the three national television channels and to provide the majority of funding for most independent newspapers. The government left no question that the payer of the piper was calling the tune. For example, in February, Yeltsin fired independent-minded RTR Director Oleg Poptsov and replaced him with Eduard Sagalaev, the President of TV6, who toed the government line during the campaign.

Third, the campaign enlisted the Russian business elite, including Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of Most Bank and NTV, and Boris Berezovsky, the major share holder in ORT. Igor Malashenko, Gusinky’s appointed head of NTV, joined the Yeltsin campaign directly, and led the Yeltsin campaign’s media relations. (Imagine the equivalent of the head of NBC, CBS, ABC, or CNN serving as the lead media consultant for the Clinton reelection campaign, meeting with the team daily to decide what should be the lead story in the press.)

Fourth, the Russian government and the Moscow city government, under the leadership of Yeltsin-backer, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, exercised administrative guidance and leverage reminiscent of older times. Owners, publishers, editors and others were informed that newspaper licenses and Moscow leases were "under review." They quickly fell in line.

Fifth, the campaign also paid journalists directly for positive coverage. After hearing, during a seminar at Harvard, one of Yeltsin’s campaign strategists explain how brilliantly they had managed to get their desired stories in the press as a result of his persuasiveness, SDI’s Director remarked that we had heard of cases where journalists were paid $1000 for a positive television story. The campaign official did not deny the allegation, but noted that this was merely "incidental."

Finally, the campaign conducted a coherent media strategy, complete with billboards, a well-crafted brochure against the Communists called God Forbid, and books with glossy pictures of Yeltsin as President, and selective television programming with a litany of anti-Communist films including the 1995 Oscar winner Burnt by the Sun shown the night before the election, and an all-day Mexican soap opera marathon designed to keep people at home so they would go and vote, as opposed to leaving town for their country dachas. The Yeltsin campaign media strategy would have been the envy of any Western campaign consultant.

To complement these campaign tactics, the Yeltsin alliance also operated actively behind the political scenes to ensure that their message was the only plausible alternative to the Communist one. The "us vs. them," Communists vs. democrats message would only work if the Yeltsin team was the only plausible alternative to Zyuganov. One of the team’s greatest fears was that a third force or break-away candidate would throw the competition into a three-way race and therefore perhaps exclude Yeltsin from the second round. Therefore, the team worked to undermine opponents and their possible coalition building. One way of doing this was by excluding other opponents from the media. Another way was to buy off candidates by secretly getting them to agree not to campaign hard or cooperate with one another. The most active efforts to keep serious third candidate challenges down occurred with the potential "Third Force" candidates of Lebed, Yavlinsky, and Fedorov. Such an alliance could have proven disastrous for the Yeltsin campaign efforts, so the campaign secretly enlisted Lebed’s support, provided campaign and financial assistance, and promised the former General a job in the next administration in exchange for a promise to stay in the race and not to join other candidates. The ploy worked, and despite frequent discussions, a coherent third force never emerged.

The West also played a small part in helping to get Boris Yeltsin reelected. By this we are not referring to the "Western advisors" based at the campaign headquarters who, according to Timemagazine in 1996, supposedly orchestrated the entire campaign effort. These claims should be viewed with skepticism. Our sources in the Yeltsin campaign assert that, while present, these individuals —; who were veterans of the failed 1996 Pete Wilson for President campaign in the U.S. —; were by no means influential in the overall scheme of Yeltsin campaign.

Instead, by Western influence, we refer to Western policies designed to bolster Yeltsin’s image as the "leader of Russia" who could represent Russia on the world stage. In the months before the election, the International Monetary Fund approved a $10 billion loan for Russia to help with its economic transition and wage arrears. The G-7 in 1996 held a summit in Moscow hosted by Yeltsin on the issue of nuclear material safety. And the West held off the potentially politically explosive debate on the issue of NATO expansion until after the election. All of these actions helped to create the image of Yeltsin as world leader for the Russian electorate.

The Yeltsin campaign was masterful and demonstrated that Western campaign tactics indeed work in Russia. The campaign correctly identified a key issue for the Russian electorate, and sold Yeltsin as the solution for that problem. It backed up this image with a well-funded, media-savvy campaign. Boris Yeltsin won reelection because he defined the predominant issue of the campaign as "go forward or go backwards."

Why Zyuganov Lost:

In January 1996, Gennady Zyuganov was destined to be the next President of Russia. He had momentum arising from his Communist Party’s victory in the December 1995 Duma election where the Communists and their allies secured control of close to half of the Duma. The Russian economy also continued to contract despite government promises that the worst was over. Yeltsin’s approval rating was languishing in the single digits, and believing the message of the Duma election was that the country no longer sought reforms, Yeltsin had just fired his most loyal Western-oriented advisors. Zyuganov’s party, the Communists, and their broader "national-patriotic bloc," had good organization based throughout the country and seemed poised to walk away with the election. In early February, Zyuganov attended the world economic forum at Davos in what was unofficially billed as Russia’s next President’s coming-out party. With so much momentum, what went wrong?

Zyuganov had a fundamental problem from the beginning in his Popular Patriotic Union. Although he tried to sell this group as a unified force of those united against Boris Yeltsin and the changes that the President had inflicted on the country, in fact the group was anything but unified. Broadly, the Union contained those who were strongly opposed to the current regime and sought anything from radical economic restructuring to a return to Stalinism, and those who were of a more social-democratic bent, who wished to add a human face to the economic hardships the Russian people were suffering. All were against Yeltsin, but all were not unified in their prescriptions for policies after Yeltsin. Atop this powder keg sat Zyuganov, trying not to upset anyone in the coalition for fear of splitting his support or, even worse, possibly encouraging another candidate to enter the race who would divide his constituency.

The Communists had done well in the 1995 Duma election and had gained 22.3% of the vote in the party voting. In the one-round Duma election, with 43 parties competing, the party had the luxury of only having to appeal to their fundamental constituency. They did this with strong results. In the Presidential election, with two rounds, Zyuganov, with his expected 25% of the vote, likely had enough votes to make the second round. But if Zyuganov were to win in the second round, he would have to appeal beyond the traditional Communist constituents. To do this, he would have to moderate his policies and move toward the middle. However, any move to the center was perceived by the radical left of his coalition as selling out to the social democrats and confirming their fears that Zyuganov was not a "true Communist." Therefore, Zyuganov, balancing between the two groups, could not expand his constituency by taking more moderate stances. By Zyuganov not moving toward the center, this cleared the way for the Yeltsin campaign to capture the center and therefore win the second round of the election. By the time campaigning for the second round actually began, Yeltsin had already sewn up the middle and left Zyuganov with little room to maneuver.

In addition to this fundamental problem of moderates versus radicals in the Communist opposition, (a problem, incidentally, that Zyuganov and the Communists still face in the Duma in the Summer of 1998, two years later) the Zyuganov campaign made a number of tactical campaign errors.

First, the Zyuganov team recognized that it had to expand its appeal beyond its core constituency. However, they mistakenly assumed that the nationalists were in the middle and that by making appeals to the nationalist voters, on the basis that they were all against Yeltsin, Zyuganov could gain enough votes for victory in the second round. In reality, the nationalist voters already had candidates of their own in the first round for which they could vote, Zhirinovsky and Lebed, and they found Zyuganov’s appeals unconvincing. In the second round, the nationalist candidates either joined the Yeltsin government (Lebed) or refused to endorse Zyuganov (Zhirinovsky). Worse for Zyuganov, for those undecided voters who were truly in the middle, Zyuganov’s nationalistic overtures only confirmed their fear that he was too radical to be President and thus alienated them.

Second, the Zyuganov campaign made a number of obvious campaign blunders that further confirmed fears that should he be elected, he would begin to institute radical change. The first came in March 1996, when the Communist-dominated Duma, sensing that the population was happier under the Soviet Union, passed a resolution declaring the invalidity of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Accords, which had dissolved the U.S.SR. This sent shock waves across the globe and raised fears that a Zyuganov administration might try to reintegrate the former Soviet Union. Although Zyuganov protested that any such reintegration would be peaceful, economically-based, and voluntary, the Yeltsin campaign played up the Duma’s vote, claiming that a Zyuganov presidency would threaten stability. With polls showing that stability was a key issue for voters, the Yeltsin campaign’s strategy worked. The second blunder occurred after a number of moderating statements from Zyuganov, when retired General and 1991 coup-plotter Valentin Varennikov stated publicly that he was not worried about Zyuganov’s slide toward social-democracy because the party had a clear unpublished plan — "a maximum program" — to put in place after the election. Again, the population’s suspicions of radical changes ahead were confirmed, and no matter how often Zyuganov denied the existence of the maximum plan, the seeds of doubt had been planted. Zyuganov’s efforts to capture moderate voters in the middle were undermined.

Third, Zyuganov allowed Yeltsin to define the terms of the debate. It was the Zyuganov campaign’s job to sell the Ronald Reagan question to the electorate, when confronted by the Yeltsin strategy of "Will you be better off four years from now under Yeltsin or under Zyuganov?" The Communists’ campaign failed to come up with an adequate counter charge of reminding the electorate how bad things were at the moment.

Fourth, Zyuganov failed to complain about campaign abuses by the Yeltsin Administration. Zyuganov was effectively excluded from TV. Any media coverage of him inevitably had a negative bias. Yet Zyuganov was not adamant in his protests about this unfairness, nor was he critical of the Yeltsin campaign’s questionable spending habits, or even of Yeltsin’s questionable health. In SDI’s conversations with Russian colleagues, we were told that the Yeltsin health question was culturally a taboo subject for campaigns. Any attack on Yeltsin’s health would inevitably lead to a belief that the attacker was trying to hurt a sick man when he was down and would backfire. Nevertheless, when American consultants were presented with this dilemma, they would inevitably suggest that the health question could be raised without actually attacking Yeltsin directly. For instance, one might cite how many days Yeltsin had been out of the public eye in the last year, or especially during the final days of the campaign, when Yeltsin fully disappeared from view. Zyuganov, for example, could have demanded to see the President to ensure that he was still living, or raise the issue by stating: "We all wish the President good health and a speedy recovery; but, perhaps, such a sick man should concentrate on getting better as opposed to running a country." Zyuganov, however, never addressed the issue directly or indirectly.

As a result of all these miscues, Zyuganov placed second in the first round, a disappointment considering his lead in the polls in January. Two out of three voters had rejected the Communist candidate, and Zyuganov had failed to significantly expand his constituency beyond gains achieved in the 1995 Duma election (from 22.3% to 32%, or from 15 million to 24 million votes). Zyuganov’s mistaken tactic of shoring up hard-line support as opposed to taking moderate stances undercut his credibility and alienated him from the Russian middle.

In the period between the first and second round of the election, Zyuganov ran a lackluster campaign only part of which could be explained by his lack of funds and inability to get television coverage. He did not travel from Moscow during this time and did not stress Yeltsin’s disappearance. He also did not contest the scheduling of the second round for a Wednesday, a move clearly designed to benefit Yeltsin. His efforts to encourage other candidates to join him in a coalition of "National Accord" also fell on deaf ears as almost all of the other candidates had previously agreed to endorse the Yeltsin campaign. Perhaps Zyuganov’s lack of effort was a result of exhaustion from the long campaign. But SDI found intriguing another suggestion made by the keen Russian political observer, John Lloyd, former bureau chief of London’s Financial Times.Lloyd stated at a conference the SDI Project sponsored on the Russian Presidential election at Harvard University in April 1996, that Zyuganov did not really seek to win the Presidency. Lloyd contended that Zyuganov, a middle-level party bureaucrat from the Soviet era, did not seek responsibility for the political and economic fortunes of Russia and preferred to remain in opposition. ₉

In the end, Zyuganov went down in defeat to Yeltsin in the second round, and returned to his role as leader of the Communist Party in the Duma. However, as opposition frontrunner, he played an important role in the democratic process in Russia’s transition. He competed in the election, accepting the rules of the game, and when he lost, he gracefully conceded defeat and wished the victor good luck. While not victorious in his efforts, and while through his failure Russia was not able to transfer power to an opposition candidate, as many countries in Central Europe had, Zyuganov’s actions still helped to promote democracy in Russia.

The Lebed Campaign, the Unexpected Victor:

One of the biggest surprises of the 1996 presidential campaign was the strong third place finish of retired General Alexander Lebed. Lebed, a former paratrooper, had appeared on the Russian political scene a year before as a source of order and an alternative nationalist to the buffoonery of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Lebed left the military in early 1995 and joined Dmitri Rogozin’s Congress of Russian Communities (KRO) political faction to compete for a Duma seat. This group, headed by Rogozin and former Russian Security Council Secretary and one-time Yeltsin ally Yuri Skokov, focused on the plight of Russians living in the former Soviet republics. Lebed was number two on KRO’s party list and independently ran for the Duma seat from Tula, where he had served as a commander of airborne forces. Lebed won the independent seat in the Duma, but KRO failed to clear the 5% electoral hurdle and consequently did not gain any list seats. Shortly after KRO’s failure, Lebed split ranks with its leaders, determined to forge his own identity and to run for President independently.

The Lebed campaign for the Presidency was woefully under-funded and disorganized at first, but it had several strong assets. First, Lebed himself was a natural politician. His charisma, baritone voice, reputation for toughness and incorruptibility, humorous quips, confidence, and what seemed to be a belief that he was destined to rule, resonated well with audiences and came through in interviews. Second, although KRO’s Duma campaign had failed, it had given Lebed greater exposure and had allowed him to get one campaign under his belt before running for the Presidency. Third, even though Lebed remained vague on the specifics of issues, he adopted strong stances on issues that resonated, such as stopping crime and corruption, ending the war in Chechnya, and promoting a strong Russia, which would be respected in the world. Unlike Zyuganov, Lebed wisely hired a moderate economist, Vitaly Naishul, to help him with his economic plan and his speeches. While clearly more comfortable with military and crime issues, he at least made the attempt to appear as having moderate views on the economy.

His campaign also faced a number of weaknesses, most notably, a lack of funds and a lack of organization. Without the semi-established KRO, Lebed was on his own, with only his charisma to promote his candidacy. The Lebed candidacy continued alone until April 1996, when the second-tier candidates began to make noises about forming an alliance to give the voters an alternative to Yeltsin and Zyuganov. Thus, talk of a "Third Force" emerged. The groups included Lebed, Grigory Yavlinsky, Svyatoslav Fedorov, and at times, Mikhail Gorbachev. The individual candidates met with each on several occasions to discuss cooperation and combining their candidacies so that one might run for president with the support of the others in exchange for future cabinet positions.

As mentioned above, prospects of a Third Force sent shock waves through the Yeltsin camp and threatened to undermine their efforts. Therefore, the Yeltsin campaign began to meet with the individuals negotiating the Third Force to see whether they could cut a side deal to prevent its formation. Lebed took the bait and secretly agreed to stay in the race and keep negotiating with the others, while never accepting any type of collaborative agreement. This prevented the groups from forming, but kept the negotiations going long enough so that such a group did not form without Lebed. Also, to the benefit of the Yeltsin camp, Lebed remaining in the race drew votes away from Zhirinovsky and perhaps nationalist Zyuganov supporters. Lebed’s tacit support for Yeltsin in the second round gave Yeltsin an anti-corruption image and broadened his appeal even further to include nationalists. In exchange, it is rumored, Lebed got financial backing, more air time, political consultation, and a promise of a position in the new cabinet once Yeltsin was reelected. Not surprisingly, as a result, Lebed’s poor numbers began to rise in early June, and the day after his third place finish it was announced that Lebed was joining the cabinet as the new head of the Security Council. In those honeymoon days before Lebed’s joining the Administration, Yeltsin even hinted during a speech in his hometown of Yekaterinburg that he had found his successor. When asked if it was Lebed, he said, "You have guessed correctly." Lebed left the government four months later for not being a team player, but not before formally ending the war in Chechnya.

Lebed’s 14% vote total in the first round was the surprise of the election. His success demonstrated a longing for order among a sizable portion of the electorate and his charisma, campaign style, and theme of "Where Lebed is Order Exists" stuck with the voters. Lebed made no secret of his primary interest, namely power. He believed then, as he does now, that he is a man of destiny — destined to lead Russia to a restoration of its greatness. His political beliefs are ill-defined, sometimes primitive and flexible, but he has demonstrated a willingness and capacity to learn. His principal guiding stars seem to be order, realism, anti-corruption, military reform, and in time the restoration of Russian greatness. He has made political mistakes, such as derogatory comments about Mormon missionaries in Russia or supposed coup attempts, but he is learning quickly, and as the recently elected governor of Krasnoyarsk Oblast, Lebed is positioning himself for his next run at Russia’s Presidency in 2000.

The Also-Rans: Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky, and Gorbachev:

Three other candidates of note also ran in the 1996 Presidential election. Together they gained 13.5% of the vote in the first round, and while all of them acknowledged that their winning the Presidency was a long shot, their participation helped to legitimize the election.

Democratic reformer Grigory Yavlinsky was the first candidate to declare his intentions to run for the Presidency. He did so to prevent Yeltsin from canceling the elections using the excuse that no one was planning to run against the incumbent. Yavlinsky’s Yabloko party emerged from the December 1995 Duma elections as one of only four parties out of 43 competing to clear the 5% hurdle and gain party-list seats. Significantly, Yabloko was also the only legitimate pro-reform party to gain entry into the Duma through party-list voting.

Yavlinsky’s presidential campaign was based on the argument that democratic reform had gone wrong under the Yeltsin administration. It had brought about the war in Chechnya, poor economic results, and corruption. Yavlinsky offered himself as a democratic alternative, as the candidate to support if one was pro-reform, but anti-Yeltsin. Up to this point, Yavlinsky had polled highly, gaining 18% at his high-point and tying with Zyuganov for the lead, despite a reputation as someone who had a difficult time working with other politicians. ₁₀

In the end the Yavlinsky campaign faltered for four reasons. First, the campaign was disorganized and under-funded from the beginning. Second, it also suffered from a near press blackout. Yavlinsky could not get his message to the people. Third, there was the belief that a Yavlinsky vote was a wasted vote. The populace expected the final round of the presidential race to be between Yeltsin and Zyuganov. Polls showed that although Yeltsin was unpopular, most citizens believed he would be the next President. It was inconceivable to many people that Yeltsin would allow Yavlinsky, or any other democrat for that matter, to assume his place in taking on the Communists. Fourth, like Zyuganov, Yavlinsky had a difficult time expanding beyond his core constituency; he drew similar percentages in both the Duma and Presidential elections. It seemed that Yavlinsky was everyone’s second favorite choice.

Sensing that his campaign was not taking off, Yavlinsky began to speak with Lebed and others about the Third Force arrangement. As with Lebed, Yavlinsky met with the government to discuss cutting a deal. However, unlike Lebed, Yavlinsky’s demands proved too high. In exchange for loyalty, Yavlinsky demanded an end to the bloodshed in Chechnya and full dismissal of all of Yeltsin’s senior advisors including: Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, Yeltsin bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, Chief of Staff Nikolai Yegorov, and First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets. These demands were made publicly, which enraged the Administration. In the end, Yeltsin’s team made a pact with Lebed. They realized that Yavlinsky supporters would have nowhere to go but Yeltsin in the second round, thus, no agreement was made. When Yavlinsky placed fourth in the first round of the election and Lebed joined the government shortly thereafter, Yavlinsky reluctantly endorsed Yeltsin as a better alternative to Zyuganov.

As a result of the election, Yavlinsky did not join the government, choosing to remain leader of the democratic opposition in the Duma. For a while his poll numbers suffered. However, as Yeltsin grew ill in the post-election months and squandered any honeymoon, Yavlinsky’s poll numbers began to rise again. He has currently declared his intention to run again in the 2000 Presidential elections.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, on the other hand, had a price. The "bad boy" of Russian politics, who had polled a distressing third in the 1991 Presidential election and whose misnamed Liberal Democratic Party of Russia had shocked the world twice by winning the 1993 Parliamentary election and by having a surprisingly strong showing in the 1995 Duma election, ran a relatively quiet campaign for the Presidency.

The contrast between the 1995 Duma campaign for the LDPR and Zhirinovsky’s presidential campaign was striking. The Duma campaign was stylized and well-funded. Until the Yeltsin presidential campaign came along, LDPR campaigns had demonstrated the slickest commercials and the best understanding of Western campaigning techniques. Their charismatic leader applied humor and shock and captured the protest vote.

The Zhirinovsky presidential campaign, occurring mere months later, was noticeably subdued. Few shocking revelations, no antics, few campaign commercials. Clearly something had changed. In fact, the Russian presidential campaign exposed Zhirinovsky for what he is — an entertainer. Zhirinovsky recognized that from his current position in the Duma he had plenty of press coverage, opportunities for political and business advancement, and relatively few responsibilities. A concerted run at the Presidency, might find him an accidental winner, unlikely but possible — and then Zhirinovsky would have to deal with the real issues of running a state.

Why not just drop out? For one, Zhirinovsky was expected to run. He had competed in 1991, and had just proven the pundits and polls wrong a second time months earlier when the LDPR cleared the 5% hurdle in the 1995 Duma election. Second, although never confirmed, a deal was likely cut between Zhirinovsky and the President’s campaign. By staying in the race, Zhirinovsky could be counted on to receive at least 5% of the vote, and therefore divide the opposition ever further. Without Zhirinovsky in the race, some of his vote might have found its way to Zyuganov. As further evidence of a deal, between the first and second round, Zhirinovsky, while not openly endorsing Yeltsin, pointedly refused to endorse Zyuganov, even though both candidates were supposedly in opposition to the government.

At the end of the 1996 race, like Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky returned to his party leadership post in the Duma. However, in his case the election may have hurt him in the long run. By not campaigning seriously for the Presidency, Zhirinovsky revealed that he did not stand for the national principles he espoused. He still might have shock value as a protest candidate or an entertainer, but as a serious politician, his star has dimmed. Additionally, a new nationalist had appeared on the Russian political scene as a result of the election and Alexander Lebed seemed poised to capture much of the nationalist vote in the future.

Mikhail Gorbachev ran for the Presidency of Russia in 1996 for a different reason altogether. He did not seriously expect to win and wrest the Presidency away from his long-time nemesis Boris Yeltsin, although their historic personal competition certainly played a part in his deciding to run. Instead Gorbachev was running to set the record straight on his efforts to change the Soviet Union and to improve his historical image.

The Gorbachev campaign was woefully under-funded and met with outright resistance from the Yeltsin Administration. Governors loyal to Yeltsin would not assist the Gorbachev campaign and would make it difficult for the campaign to hold rallies. When Gorbachev did hold meetings, they would be packed with Russians who came to berate the former Soviet President for his policies and what he had done to the country. Twice Gorbachev was physically assaulted on the campaign trail. Gorbachev would listen to the complaints leveled against him and respond with answers to what had went wrong. Some were convinced, others were not. Still, one must give the former President points for courage to directly face his detractors. As John Lloyd states, "He subjected himself to humiliations that his fellow retired world leaders — Ronald Reagan (by then increasingly disabled with Alzheimer’s disease), George Bush, Margaret Thatcher — would never have dreamed of inviting." ₁₁ In the end, Gorbachev earned less than half of one percent of the vote — an embarrassingly small figure. Even Svyatoslav Fedorov, the eye surgeon, gained more votes. But perhaps in the long run, the campaign will have served to change some people’s mind about Mikhail Gorbachev and assist in developing a positive legacy for him.

Analysis of the Status of Russian Democracy Resulting from the 1996 Presidential Election:

By conducting the 1996 Russian Presidential election, Russian democracy passed its biggest and most visible democratic test. While by no means perfect, the Russian Presidential election showed that Russia was indeed serious about its efforts to build a sustainable democracy. A number of clear positive signs emerged from the election along with a couple of disturbing trends.

First, candidates from all political perspectives agreed to the election in principle, participated in the election, and accepted the results. From Yeltsin and Yavlinsky on the reform side, to Zyuganov on the Communist side, candidates from all political stripes competed in the election. A voter of almost any political perspective could find a candidate that reflected his or her views. All candidates agreed that elections were the proper way to gain power. Two opposition candidates deserve to be specifically mentioned here: Zyuganov and Lebed.

Gennady Zyuganov’s agreement to compete in the Presidential election added legitimacy to the entire process. Without Zyuganov’s participation, the election could not have been considered a serious race where voters had the right to choose between the government and the leading opposition. Zyuganov and the Popular Patriotic Union were by no means a token opposition trumped up to give President Yeltsin a token competitor. Zyuganov and his campaign team set out to win and to change things, and in doing so, gave the Russian people a legitimate choice. Zyuganov’s recognition that Yeltsin won the election and graceful acceptance of the results, despite some questionable campaign tactics on the President’s part also played a large role in promotion of Russian democracy. In a very real sense, Gennady Zyuganov’s participation did as much for the future of Russian democracy as Yeltsin holding the election in the first place. It is ironic that someone from a party that is against much of what the Yeltsin government does and says should have done so much to assist in the establishment of a sustainable Russian democracy.

Alexander Lebed’s participation in the election showed that a nationalist also agreed to the elections and more importantly showed that the correct way for a military officer to participate in politics is to resign from the military and to campaign. Lebed was not busy trying to organize the military to support any type of coup. Instead he was campaigning for the votes of all Russian citizens, including the military. Now, although Lebed was popular and relatively senior in the military, it was unlikely that he could have managed any type of coup, but he could have engaged in political activity outside of the election process, which he did not. And his election activities set a precedent for future military leaders who take an interest in politics. Lebed’s participation thus also helped the development of Russian democracy.

In the end, no candidate questioned the results of the election and no major candidate refused to participate in the election on principle. Additionally, all major candidates, opposition included, were allowed to participate in the election. The 1996 Russian Presidential election offered Russian citizens a true choice for their future. By holding an election in such a manner, Russia increased the chances that successive elections will be conducted in a similar vein.

Second, the fact the election was held at all was a victory for Russian democracy. Throughout the year leading up to the Presidential election rumors abounded that the election would be canceled. The greatest threat to cancellation came from the government itself. With Yeltsin’s poor popularity and the poor state of the Russian economy, many feared that Yeltsin would indeed "postpone" the election until a more stable time in Russia’s transition. Such a move would have been the death knell for Russian democracy in 1996.

How close did the election come to being canceled? Pretty close by some accounts. David Remnick in his excellent summary of the presidential election in the New Yorker describes how troops were dispatched to surround and forcibly disband the Duma on a Sunday in March 1996 in response to the Communist declaration that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Accords were invalid. ₁₂ The first Yeltsin election campaign team, consisting of Yeltsin’s more hard-line members led by bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, fearing that Yeltsin was doomed in a free election, were looking for a reason to cancel the election. The Communist decree provided them with an opportunity to say a Communist victory would mean instability and therefore Russia could not risk the election. Upon hearing of the dispatch of troops, members of Yeltsin’s newer and younger campaign team, headed by Anatoly Chubais, held an emergency meeting with Yeltsin and convinced him that he could indeed win a free election and not have the albatross of canceling the election on his conscience. Yeltsin relented and withdrew the troops.

Throughout the election campaign, individuals close to the Presidency were quoted as saying they were against the election. Vladimir Shumeiko, Chairman of the upper house of the Parliament, and other members of the Federation Council advised canceling the election in March 1996 because of the Duma denunciation of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Accords, saying, "What kind of President does Zyuganov want to be and of what country?" ₁₃ In April, Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, one of seven industrialists financing the Yeltsin campaign, urged Yeltsin and Zyuganov to cancel the election and to form a coalition government. "The question is not whether or not to postpone the elections... The problem is finding a legal way to do it... Either we find a compromise or we face a civil war." ₁₄ And as late as May 1996, Yeltsin’s closest confidant and bodyguard, Alexander Korzhakov, told the British press, "Many influential people in Russia support postponing the elections because we need stability more than anything else now." ₁₅

With academics and close advisors telling him he should cancel the election, why did Yeltsin allow the election to take place? One reason was that his new young election team was confident they could win the election for Yeltsin. Second, Yeltsin wanted to be seen as a historic force for good for Russia. He sought to secure the image of the man who stood on a tank to face down a coup in 1991, not the image of the man who bombed the Russian Parliament in 1993 or began the war in Chechnya in 1994. Canceling the election would have irrevocably tarnished Yeltsin’s reputation. Yeltsin ultimately made the right choice for Russian democracy, but that choice may have been made not for the sake of Russian democracy, but for the sake of Yeltsin’s legacy.

Third, the Russian Presidential election in 1996 was a victory for the democratic presumption in Russia. By conducting the election, the Russian people voted for their leader and are now less likely to be willing to give up that voting habit. People in Russia now correctly hold those who govern accountable for their actions. As seen by the high voter turnout in 1996, they have faith that elections are the appropriate place to hold leaders accountable. The people appreciated the significance that they were being asked to choose the leader of their country and took that responsibility seriously. Furthermore, in their choice, the Russian people voted for stability and the future. By voting for President Yeltsin’s reelection, the majority of the Russian people agreed that although things are bad, they did not want to risk the unknown or go backwards. A vote for Yeltsin was not a vote for an unpopular man who many perceived had done a marginal job as President. Instead, it was a vote for a potentially normalized future where elections such as these would be a regular occurrence and not a watershed event. By voting for Yeltsin, the Russian people voted to go forward.

While the participation of all candidates, the holding of the election, and the people’s participation were all victories for Russian democracy, a major question affecting that issue was not answered with Yeltsin’s reelection, and one can justifiably fear that the answer to that question might have been extremely damaging to Russia’s democratic experiment. That question: "Had Yeltsin lost, would he have stepped down?"

In the weeks before the election, a joke circulated through Moscow that demonstrated the concern over this issue. The joke ran that on the day after the second round of the election, Yeltsin’s aide approached the President and announced that, "Boris Nikolaevich, we have both good news and bad news concerning the results of the election." Yeltsin asked, "What is the bad news?" His aide responded that, "The bad news is that Gennady Zyuganov, got 53% of the vote." "That’s terrible!," Yeltsin exclaimed, "Then what is the good news?" "The good news," said Yeltsin’s aide, "is that you got 56% of the vote."

This joke demonstrates the legitimate fear that had Yeltsin lost in the second round, he would not have handed over power to Gennady Zyuganov." Based on its analysis of political developments in 1996, SDI also believes that Yeltsin would have remained in power had he lost. While Yeltsin showed courage in submitting himself to the will of the people and allowing the election to go on, these victories for Russian democracy are tarnished by Yeltsin’s obvious unwillingness to relinquish power and abide by the people’s will —; if the people’s choice was Zyuganov.

What is the basis for this conclusion? First one can look at statements made by Yeltsin allies. Sergei Karaganov, a Yeltsin foreign policy expert who was a member of Yeltsin’s Presidential Council told New Yorkerreporter David Remnick, "If Yeltsin loses, he will not give power to the Communists... He has said that more than once... I would say that he would give up power, but not to Communists." ₁₆ Second, a Russian law on the transfer of power was never actually passed into law. Yeltsin claimed he would not need it. Third, Yeltsin had spent the last seven years fighting Communists. The fact that he would have had to transfer power directly to his adversaries after all his efforts would have been galling to the President. It would have been easier to transfer power to someone else with a different ideological bent. Fourth, polls show that many Russians held a similar opinion. When asked who do you want to win, they would reply with many candidates, but with Yeltsin not being among the favorites. But when asked who they thought would be the next President, they responded in high number with Yeltsin. ₁₇

Therefore, although the Russian Presidential election was a victory for democracy, there is still some distance to go before one can say this was a normal election like those that occur regularly in the West. Perhaps it is best to view this election as the last great debate for Russia’s future between Communism and democracy, where the leaders who had brought the democratic revolution this far would have refused to let all of their efforts go to waste. If one accepts this premise, then one can hope that the Presidential election of 2000 will not be such a momentous decision between systems of government, but rather a choice between individuals with any candidate having a legitimate chance at winning and gaining power.

Finally, in another potential setback for Russian democracy, in the two years since the election, Boris Yeltsin has hinted frequently that he might consider competing for the Presidency in 2000. The Russian Constitution clearly states that individuals can only serve two terms as President. However, members of the Yeltsin Administration and their allies have argued that Yeltsin’s first term should not count because Yeltsin was elected when Russian was not an independent country. Yeltsin’s current term should therefore be considered his first. "I believe he will be a candidate at the next Presidential elections," said Federation Council Speaker Yegor Stroyev in May 1998. "In Russia, one can always find a legal norm. The more so as the Constitution was adopted after Yeltsin had been elected for his first term." ₁₈

Any sober reading of the Constitution would approach this argument skeptically, but the Constitutional Court which would decide this issue is full of Yeltsin appointees, as is the Central Election Commission. Therefore, a ruling might go in favor of the President. Needless to say, such a flagrant violation by Yeltsin would be very damaging for the Russian Constitution and Russian democracy. As of the summer of 1998, the Duma was working on legislation to prevent this event from happening, but the results are not yet known. Hopefully, Yeltsin will be concerned enough about his democratic credentials and his historic legacy to walk away and retire in 2000.

In general, even with the possibility that Yeltsin might not have stepped down had he lost, one can answer Freedom House’s question, that yes, the head of the Russian state is elected through free and relatively fair elections. The 1996 elections established the precedent, and hopefully future regular presidential elections will normalize the process and guarantee Russian democracy.

 

B. Is the Parliament Elected Through Free and Fair Elections?

Six months prior to the Presidential election, Russia faced the first significant test of its nascent democracy: the December 1995 Parliamentary elections. True, Russia had conducted elections to the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in December 1993, but these elections must be considered as having been conducted under duress. Less than three months prior to the 1993 elections, President Yeltsin had bombed the old legislature, the Congress of People’s Deputies, out of its building, the Russian White House. In the shadow of one branch of government attacking another, the 1993 election’s normalcy is remarkable. Furthermore, while the December 1993 Duma elections were being conducted, a referendum on the new Constitution, which gave the Presidency immense powers, was being held at the same time. Therefore, part of the Duma election was overshadowed by the new referendum.

The results of the 1993 Duma election shocked the world because of one man: Vladimir Zhirinovsky. These elections were the break-through for the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. Zhirinovsky out-polled Prime Minister Gaidar’s Russia’s Choice party 23% to 15.3%. And although Russia’s Choice ultimately ended up with more seats than the LDPR once district seats were counted, the results were the first major set-back and wake-up call for the previously popular pro-democracy, pro-Yeltsin movement.

The Duma elected in 1993 served an abbreviated two-year term before the next election and a four year cycle set in. Eleven parties and electoral blocs were represented in that Duma. With a shortened legislative session, much of the time served was spent making preparations for the next Duma election in December 1995.

The December 1995 Duma election was Russia’s first chance at a normalized national election. Parties and individuals had time to prepare and campaign; incumbent parties in the Duma had records on which to run. The election commissions throughout the country had time to get ready to run the elections. And like the Presidential elections six months later, these elections were largely perceived as a test of Russian democracy. Would the government allow these elections to occur at all, especially if it suspected that opposition parties would turn out to be the big winners? If Yeltsin ultimately wanted to cancel the 1996 Presidential election, would it not be easier and less threatening to cancel a preliminary parliamentary election, as opposed to the main election for the leadership of Russia?

Again, like the Presidential election to come, and despite numerous rumors to the contrary, the Duma election was held in a relatively free and fair manner and the victors, in this case the opposition candidates, were allowed to take their seats. With the successful completion of 1995 Duma election, Russia’s democracy had passed its first major hurdle.

The Russian Constitution, election law, and the Duma election:

The Russian parliament (the Federal Assembly) consists of two houses: the lower house, the State Duma, consisting of 450 deputies, and the upper house, known as the Federation Council, the make-up of which was still being determined at the time of the 1995 election, but which now consists of the governor of each region and the head of each regional legislature. The December 17, 1995 parliamentary elections were only for the Duma.

The Russian Constitution set out that the first Duma would serve two years, and subsequent Dumas would serve four year terms. After much debate between the executive branch and the Duma it was determined that half of the Duma seats (225) would be elected from single mandate districts and half of the seats (225) selected from national party lists. When a Russian voter went into to the voting booth, he voted for both a district representative and a national party.

The election to single mandate districts was much like the U.S. Congressional elections, where a registered candidate wins with a plurality of the votes, no matter how small that plurality may be. As in the United States, no run-off system was used when no candidate gained more than 50% of the vote.

The party list was more complicated. In order to be certified and appear on the ballot, parties had to collect 200,000 signatures with no more than 7% coming from any one district and turn them into the Central Election Commission. Each party was required to submit to the Central Election Commission (CEC) a list of up to 270 candidates. In an effort to broaden parties appeal beyond their organizational bases in Moscow, parties in the 1995 election could only submit 12 candidates from Moscow. The rest had to come from regions other than Moscow. In reality, the parties often farmed out their Moscow organizers to the regional lists. Beyond the first 12, the rest of the list was not in a numerical order running from 13 270. Instead, candidates for the party were listed by region. When a party cleared the 5% hurdle, they were awarded a certain number of seats depending on the percentage of votes they received and how many other parties cleared the hurdle. (In 1995 only 4 parties gained more than 5%.) Once it was determined how many seats a party was going to have off of its list, the first 12 seats were given to the national list and the rest were distributed to regional lists using a mathematical formula depending on how well a party did in the regions. If a party did particularly well in list voting in a region, say Chelyabinsk, moderately well in Rostov, and poorly in Kursk, it might have three people from the Chelyabinsk list, one from Rostov, and none from Kursk. In regions where no parties were organized well and none gained a large amount of votes, that region might not have any of the party list officials elected to the Duma, and therefore only have its single mandate district representative.

The list versus single mandate debate raged for months prior to the election (as it still does today). The Administration believed that it would do better in the election if more deputies were elected from the regions because of it felt it could count on its numerous appointed and loyal governors. It therefore pushed to have fewer deputies elected to parliament from lists and more from the regions on the basis of the single mandate districts. Ultimately, a compromise was reached to keep the proportion of list to district representatives at 1:1 and to keep the 5% hurdle as it was.

All registered parties were guaranteed one hour of free air time on national television channels, where they could present their leaders and views or debate others. Almost all parties chose to give presentations as opposed to debates. Parties were allowed to spend $950,000 on their campaigns, and individuals could spend $9,500 on their campaigns, but as with the Presidential election to come, these restrictions were largely ignored. Campaign freedom and fairness will be discussed below.

In order for the election to be valid, 25% of the registered Russian electorate had to vote. If 25% had turned out nation-wide, but certain regions did not clear 25%, the single member district elections in those regions would be declared invalid and a by-election would be held, while the party list votes in the region were valid.

Although the election law and its implementation was complicated and demanding, the Central Election Commission and the regional election commissions performed admirably and proved that they were capable of handling such a large election.

Summary of the 1995 Duma Campaign:

Forty-three parties appeared on the ballot for the Duma election with 5,675 candidates appearing on party lists. Some 2,700 candidates competed in the Duma election for district seats, which averaged to 12 candidates per district. Some candidates ran both on lists and in district races, meaning if a candidate won in his district, he gave up his spot on the party list to someone else.

In the final results, opposition parties were the big winners. In party list voting the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CP-RF) earned 22.31% — twice as many votes as its closest rival. Nine out of ten voters rejected Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s pro-government Our Home is Russia. Surprisingly, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR again conquered the nationalist vote. And Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko bloc became the only reformist opposition party in the Parliament. All 39 other parties failed to clear the 5% hurdle and gain deputies from list voting.

In the 225 single mandate districts, parties themselves were the big losers. Only the Communists gained a respectable 58 deputies from district races. The next closest party was the Agrarian party with 20 seats. Of the parties clearing 5% in the list voting, Our Home is Russia gained 10 seats in the regions, LDPR gained one, and Yabloko earned 14. Instead, single member races often went to candidates not-affiliated with parties.

The final results showed:

	Party List %	Party List total seats	Single Member District Seats	Total Seats in 1995 Duma	Seats in 1993 Duma	Change in Seating 1993–1995
Communists (CP-RF)	22.31%	100%	58	158	45	+113
Our Home Is Russia (NDR)	9.89%	44	10	54	n/a	+54
LDPR (Zhirinovsky)	11.06%	50	1	51	64	-13
Yabloko (Yavlinsky)	6.93%	31	14	45	25	+20
Agrarians	3.78%	0	20	20	55	-35
Russia’s Choice (Gaidar)	3.9%	0	9	9	76	-67
Power to the People (Ryzhkov)	2.1%	0	9	9	n/a	+9
KRO (Lebed)	4.29%	0	5	5	n/a	+5
Women of Russia	4.6%	0	3	3	23	-20
Sv. Fedorov Party	4.01%	0	1	1	n/a	+1
Labor Russia	4.52%	0	3	3	n/a	+3
Independent Candidates	n/a	0	77	77	65	+12

As opposed to going through all 43 parties and their fates, we will instead look at the four main ideological blocs that each of the four parties who cleared the 5% hurdle represented: the left; the nationalists; the government; and the democratic reformers.

The Left: The left was dominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, led by Gennady Zyuganov. Most expected the Communists to do well in the election. The successor to the CPSU had made remarkable strides since their banning in 1991, but few expected the Communists to win significant seats from the district races as well as from the party lists. Why did the Communists perform so well in these elections? The Communists were effective because they best articulated the frustrations that the Russian voters felt. As a result of the reform policies of the previous four years, the average Russian had seen his income fall, his savings devoured by hyperinflation, wage arrears grow, crime and unemployment reach unprecedented levels, and his son go fight in a futile war against separatists on the southern border.

The Communists promised to end radical reform and increase social spending, state subsidies, and preferential tariffs. They also pledged to end the bloodshed in Chechnya. Such statements resonated with Russian voters, especially the elderly, who had had a difficult time adapting to the new Russia and were hurt most by the economic transition.

The Russian voters in the Duma election acted as any constituency would in a country where economic hardship had devastated personal lives. Apparently, "throw the bums out" is an international sentiment understood by Russians as well. A large part of the Communist vote was not necessarily for their ideological beliefs, but nothing more than an understandable vote against the current government policies and in favor of a better life.

Why was the CP-RF in particular successful, when many parties expressed a similar sentiment? One reason for the victory was the party’s well-organized campaign. The Communists focused on their grass roots organization inherited from their predecessor, the CPSU. The Communists had activists working throughout the country holding meetings, going door-to-door, handing out fliers and postcards with the names of their candidates, making sure their message got to the voters and that the voters got out. One very real demonstration of their organizational strength was their ability to organize election observers throughout the country on the day of the election. These techniques combined with the right message proved successful.

Was the vote for the Communists a nostalgia vote? Sentiments expressed throughout the campaign argued that daily life was better during Communist rule. However, a poll by the VTsIOM taken right after the election showed that Russian voters responded best to the issues of law and order (20.2%), stability (16%), and decent living (9.9%). Communism placed 12th out of 15 slogans (1.3%). ₁₉ Therefore, although many voters expressed sentimentality toward a more familiar and secure era, Communism itself was not what the voters sought to reestablish. The CP-RF attempted to play to this sentiment by claiming to be the successors to the old system, but successors who had learned their lesson and sought to bring back the security of the old system, while avoiding the pitfalls of the Soviet era, complete with a multi-party system.

Ironically, the strong showing of the Communists came at the expense of some of their ideological allies who failed to clear the 5% hurdle. Most notably the Agrarian Party, which had won list seats and the Duma Chairmanship in the 1993 Duma, did not gain list seats in 1995. The party did win 20 district seats and was registered as a faction in the new Duma when the Communists lent them the required 15 deputies to give them 35 members to be registered. Other left-wing parties, such as Women of Russia and Nikolai Ryzhkov’s Power to the People, also fell short in list voting. A major surprise in the election was the strong list vote showing of the Stalinist Labor Russia movement led by Viktor Anpilov. Anpilov’s unreconstructed views earned him 4.52% of the list vote — almost enough to gain at least twelve seats in the Duma.

In the 1995 Duma election, the Communists and their allies in the Duma earned 212 of the 450 seats — nearly a majority. As a result of this strong showing, the Communists were able to take the speakership, choice committee assignments, and dominate much of the Duma agenda after the election. The election also proved a good springboard for Gennady Zyuganov’s presidential campaign. Coming out of the Duma election, Zyuganov was the candidate to beat.

The Nationalists: The nationalist voters produced the greatest single surprise of the election. Prior to the election, pundits in Russia and the West, (our Project included), believed that the less sophisticated more inflammatory nationalist rhetoric of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party would give way to a more subtle nationalism espoused by former Security Council Secretary Yuri Skokov’s and General-turned-politician Alexander Lebed’s Congress of Russian Communities (KRO). Instead, as in 1993, Zhirinovsky confounded pundits and pollsters alike by gaining 11.06% of the party list vote, surpassing all others save the Communist Party. KRO, on the other hand, with 4.29%, did not gain party list seats.

In 1993 Zhirinovsky’s victory was considered a fluke. His success was considered a warning shot across the bow, but his antics over the two years, including fighting with other deputies in the Duma and his outlandish claims, such as Russian sovereignty over Alaska, were considered more entertainment and not serious nationalism. Polls prior to the 1995 election showed his party languishing beneath 5%. But Zhirinovsky supporters apparently refused to identify themselves before the election.

Why did the LDPR do so well? Again, Zhirinovsky’s outlandish claims and behavior served as a protest vote against all of the other parties. The LDPR was essentially a "none of the above" vote. With the Duma having little constitutional power relative the executive branch, citizens could register their protest by voting for the LDPR without fearing major consequences in policy. Furthermore, the LDPR campaign was slick and skillful. Based heavily on TV, Zhirinovsky ran a series of controversial and risqué advertisements known as "politico-erotica" featuring a night club singer cooing about the LDPR leader as she undressed and a married couple having sexual relations problems because she only had eyes for Zhirinovsky. The LDPR vote was almost exclusively a party list vote. The party won only one seat in a regional race. This demonstrated the power of Zhirinovsky relative to LDPR local and regional support

The surprise of the LDPR success was also the surprise of the KRO failure. With the addition of the strong-willed and charismatic Alexander Lebed to the number two spot on the party list, it was assumed that KRO would become the new nationalist force in Russia. Pundits predicted that KRO would earn around 10% of the party list vote. This in turn would provide a spring board for a Lebed presidential bid. KRO stood for a strong Russia and for protection of the rights of Russians living abroad in the states of the former Soviet Union. Ultimately, KRO got 4.29% of the vote and only earned 5 district seats. (Lebed was elected to the Duma from the Tula region.)

Why this stunning failure? Yuri Skokov blamed party organization. He said that the party had not had adequate time to organize in the regions and therefore to get its message out to the voters. Others claimed that because Skokov had served in the Administration as a close aide to Yeltsin, KRO was perceived as a Moscow-based organization and not as a true critic of the present Administration. Some suggested it was a mistake to put the popular Lebed in the number two spot and have the more politically experienced Skokov in the first position. Along these lines, the New York Times named differences between Skokov and Lebed as the main culprit for KRO’s failure. ₂₀ Throughout the fall, despite repeated assertions by both KRO leaders that they got along, rumors flew that Skokov and Lebed could not work together. Tensions between the two occasionally showed, such as the debate over which KRO leader would eventually run for president. They also disagreed on cooperating with the CP-RF. Finally, KRO may have just been too decent for nationalists. The controversial Zhirinovsky with his outlandish claims may have held more appeal to those seeking Russia’s restoration as a great power.

After the election, Lebed announced his presidential bid from his independent Duma seat and subsequently cut a deal with Yeltsin, joined the government, left the government, and then was elected Governor of Krasnoyarsk. He is currently preparing for his 2000 presidential bid. Without seats in the Duma and without Lebed as a big name leader, KRO, while still in existence, has been relegated to the political wilderness.

The Government: Clearly the biggest loser of the campaign was the government’s Our Home is Russia. A political creation eight months before the Duma election, Nash Dom Rossiya (NDR) was headed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. When Yegor Gaidar’s formerly pro-government Russia’s Choice spilt with the Administration over Chechnya, a new pro-government faction was needed. The Administration came up with a plan for two parties, a pro-government group headed by Chernomyrdin called Our Home is Russia, and a loyal social democratic opposition party headed by the Duma Speaker Ivan Rybkin known, for lack of a better name, as the Rybkin bloc. Ultimately the bipolar plan failed because Russia already had a true opposition in the form of Communists, nationalists, and even democrats. The Rybkin bloc was correctly perceived as a government maneuver to entice people to vote against the government without voting for any damaging opposition movement. The ploy did not work and the Rybkin bloc remained disorganized and disappeared once it failed in the elections. Meanwhile, while governors and Duma members joined the Prime Minister’s new party, Yeltsin remained above politics and did not join Our Home is Russia.

Nine out of ten Russian voters rejected Our Home is Russia at the polls in the list voting. The party did little better in the regions where it only gained 10 of the 225 district seats, despite having numerous governors supporting the NDR cause. The electorate voted against the painful transition inflicted upon them since 1991, and demonstrated their dissatisfaction with the party of power. Voters perceived that the government which did not pay pensions and began an unnecessary and unpopular war in Chechnya did not care about their needs or desires.

NDR’s campaign was misguided. Unlike the presidential election, where Yeltsin could paint Zyuganov in control as a serious threat to day-to-day life in Russia, in the Duma NDR’s election themes of proven leadership and stability did not sell with frustrated voters. This election did not determine ultimate control over Russia’s future. Likewise, the one-round election did not allow the party to hope to place in the top two and then attract allies.

Like the pro-government Russia’s Choice in 1993, NDR elected to copy Western campaign tactics. The party plastered Moscow with billboards with the slogan "If your home is precious to you." They distributed pins, buttons, mugs, and hats, and had Western entertainers give concerts and fashion shows at party-sponsored events. All of this meant little to the people suffering from severe economic hardships. Ultimately, the campaign tactics failed to sell the party to the voters.

NDR’s regional campaign failed as well because they relied on their political appointed governors to deliver the votes. Being Yeltsin appointees, these governors were not popularly elected at the time and were blamed for the economic hardships in the regions, which were even worse than in the major cites. Another difficulty in relying on governors was that the regional governors often had a strong hand in creating the regional voting lists and frequently excluded talented local politicians, whom they considered a potential threat to their own rule.

Yet another problem of Our Home was tension within the leadership. A rivalry emerged between the Yeltsin entourage and Chernomyrdin’s supporters. Some in Yeltsin’s inner circle regarded Chernomyrdin as a potential threat to Yeltsin and his advisors. Being Prime Minister, Chernomyrdin was number two in the country and first in line in succession. Any event that assisted Chernomyrdin’s popularity concerned the Yeltsin confidants. When Chernomyrdin seemed successfully to negotiate an end to the Chechen hostage crisis in Budyennovsk in June 1995 and staved off a no-confidence vote in the same month, his popularity ratings soared. Feeling threatened, the Yeltsin advisors worked quietly to undermine NDR and Chernomyrdin. They persuaded Chernomyrdin to toe the President’s line on a number of issues, hurting the Prime Minister’s popularity, while Yeltsin distanced himself from NDR, claiming it was only one of many reform parties and was not necessarily the President’s choice. The regional governors took their cue from Yeltsin’s stance and cooled their support for NDR, thus hurting its regional election prospects. This left Chernomyrdin in a delicate situation: if his bloc failed, his career would be damaged for not delivering enough support for the government, but if he did too well, the presidential apparat would work to undermine him.

In the end, NDR did poorly, but not too poorly, which allowed Chernomyrdin to retain his job as Prime Minister, although he emerged from the election with a tarnished reputation and his chances of being the Administration’s nominee for the Presidency in 1996 were essentially ended.

The Democratic Reformers: With 6.93 % of the list vote, Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko bloc became the only opposition reform party to secure a place in the Duma. With only four parties clearing the 5% hurdle, this percentage was exaggerated and Yabloko gained 31 list seats to go with the 14 seats they won in the regions. Throughout the election campaign, Yabloko refused to combine with other democratic reform parties. Although Yabloko and Gaidar’s Russia’s Democratic Choice attempted to coordinate some of their regional campaign efforts so as not to split the reform vote, to the regret of many democrats, Yavlinsky rejected full-fledged cooperation between the two groups.

Yavlinsky devoted a large part of his party’s agenda to criticizing the government, especially on issues of economic reform and Chechnya. In the view eventually used in his presidential campaign, Yabloko saw itself as the democratic opposition which offered an alternative to the government for democrats disillusioned with the current policies. From Yavlinsky’s perspective, aligning with Yegor Gaidar, who was still strongly associated in the minds of the voters with the painful results of shock therapy, would have damaged Yabloko’s election chances and would have betrayed the issues for which Yabloko stood. By going its own way, Yabloko became the sole bearer of the reform torch in the Duma. The Yabloko campaign stressed the charismatic Yavlinsky, and while using some television commercials, it relied heavily on Yavlinsky’s performances on television news and talk show programs.

Yabloko additionally gained the unexpected benefit of incurring the government’s wrath and being banned for a week in November, a month before the campaign, because of an election technicality where the party’s submitted list was not up-to-date. The ban proved a political windfall in terms of media coverage and the public perception of Yabloko as a persecuted party that deserved support. However, the party’s general campaign was not organized, as seen by the election list fiasco, and despite some progress in the regions, Yabloko in 1995 remained a largely Duma-based, Yavlinsky-driven organization.

Yegor Gaidar’s Russia’s Democratic Choice fared the worst of any party. It went from 76 seats in the old Duma to not clearing the 5% hurdle. It ended up with only nine party members elected to the Duma from regional district seats. Gaidar himself refused to run in a district seat, so was bounced from the legislature. Beyond organization problems and being blamed for the economic hardships of the last four years, Russia’s Democratic Choice was hindered because it had lost its base of support. As a pro-government party, Russia’s Democratic Choice had the support of those who supported or sought access to the government. When the party elected to change its policy fundamentally and criticized the Yeltsin Administration’s war in Chechnya, it lost its pro-government backers and financial supporters who defected to the new pro-government party, Our Home is Russia. Likewise, the party failed to attract new supporters from those who were opposed to Yeltsin because the party was so closely associated with the government policies of the past. Without a strong constituency, Russia’s Democratic Choice had little chance of succeeding.

How damaging was the fact that the reformers repeated the scenario of 1993 and ran as separate blocs? For Yabloko, the net effect was positive, at least in the short term. They were the only party to gain list representation in the Duma. For other reformers, the lack of cooperation proved devastating. Russia’s Democratic Choice earned 3.9% of the vote; no other reform party earned over 2%. Speaking after the election, Gaidar claimed the reform forces had wasted 2.5 million votes (approximately 3.7% of the votes casts) by splitting them between the reform parties. Many smaller reform parties such as Common Cause, Forward Russia!, and the Party of Russian Unity and Accord had little to no chance of clearing the 5% hurdle, thus a vote for them was a wasted reform vote. The leaders of such parties refused to join other reform forces because running independently offered free publicity and free air time, which the party leader often used to get elected from a single member district. Such personal ambition cost democratic blocs both votes and seats. In 1998, a movement emerged to change the election law so that a candidate cannot run both as one of the top three candidates on a party list and in a district race. This will hopefully significantly reduce the centrifugal political forces seen in the 1995 elections.

Lessons of the 1995 Duma Elections:

The 1995 Duma election proved that Russia was capable of conducting peaceful and fair national elections. As the first of a series of significant elections in Russia it also revealed much about how those elections would be conducted and what would be the results.

One of the biggest surprises of the election was voter turnout. While some feared that the 25% minimum voter turnout might not be met. Russians turned out in large numbers to exercise their constitutional rights to elect their officials. 64.4% of registered voters turned out nationally on election day. This far surpasses average American voter turnout, which was around 54% in the 1996 Presidential election and 38.7% in the Republican Revolution Congressional election of 1994. The unexpected turnout resulted in long lines that overwhelmed polling stations and delayed vote counting, however it confirmed that Russians took their democratic process seriously and placed value on elections as a means of selecting their leaders.

Second, voters appeared to be motivated by real day-to-day issues, such as the poor economy and the war in Chechnya. The polls showed that ideological issues were not as important and bread-and-butter issues. The Russian voters also showed a pragmatic streak. The 11% protest vote for Zhirinovsky not withstanding, voters mostly rejected extremists and went for more moderate parties. The Communists were elected over the Stalinesque Viktor Anpilov. Zhirinovsky’s strong showing only appeared in the list voting and not at the local level. The party most associated with radical reform, Gaidar’s Russia’s Choice, was rejected. While not happy with the status quo, Russian voters did not seek extreme solutions to the crisis. Most voters took their task seriously and fringe parties such as the Beer Lover’s Party fared poorly.

Third, the Russian election law determined much of the outcome of the election By having 50% of the seats elected according to a majoritarian system in the regions, with an average of 12 candidates running, a candidate could win election to the Duma with as little as 8.4% of the total votes. The lack of a second round of elections meant there was little incentive for any candidates to combine their campaigns. If a candidate could scrape together enough votes to inch out a victory against his rivals, he could win without having to think about forming a coalition to ensure that he made it into a second round. Therefore, a number of candidates from similar ideological backgrounds competed against each other, dividing their consistencies. This happened with the democrats, the left wing, and the nationalist parties.

On the party list voting, one round again meant that there was no incentive to combine, with each party believing it could possibly clear 5% and gain seats. Guaranteed air time and financing also gave parties incentives to go it alone to gain national exposure for their leader. Because a person could be on a party list and run in a district, the list campaigning exposure was used as a campaign tactic in the regional district race. A person in Krasnoyarsk might be impressed to see that a party leader, no matter how dubious the party, was actually choosing to run from his home district. Such a system of division is likely to continue in the 1999 election assuming the election law stays the same.

Fourth, the 1995 Duma election proved that Russian campaigns are similar to campaigns in other parts of the world. Television played a large part, and organized, well-funded campaigns tended to defeat disorganized, poorly-funded campaigns. The 1995 Duma election was interesting because it showcased two effective types of campaigning. On one hand, one could observe the slick, stylized televisions commercials of the LDPR which were shocking and appealing, and on the other hand, one saw the power of grass roots activism from the Communists, where good field organization replaced technical achievement. Both styles of campaigning were successfully incorporated into the 1996 Yeltsin Presidential election campaign.

Finally, this Duma campaign, and subsequent campaigns if they follow the same time schedule, acted as a primary of sorts for the presidential election. The fates of various presidential hopefuls were strongly affected by the results of the election. Some candidates, such as Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, emerged from the election with momentum on account of their strong showing. Others, such as Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, had his presidential hopes dashed as a result of his party’s poor showing in the Duma election. The Duma election shows which candidates are organized and which are popular. It takes the pulse of the nation and sets the agenda for the presidential campaign. As a result of the 1995 Duma election, President Yeltsin interpreted the results to mean that the voters were tired of reform, and therefore fired two of his leading reformers, First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. He pursued this line of curbing reform until February 1996, when his campaign was floundering and Chubais was brought back.

Analysis of Russian Democracy as a Result of the 1995 Duma Election:

Although the Russian presidential election was the most important test of Russian democracy, the 1995 Duma election, occurring six months earlier, was the first major test of Russian democracy. Had the Duma election been a disaster, Boris Yeltsin’s team would not have allowed the Russian presidential election to occur. In many ways, the 1995 Duma election was a dry run for Russian democracy’s big test. As with the Presidential elections, a number of positive signs emerged for the future of Russian democracy.

First, all parties and candidates agreed to the election, competed, and accepted the results. The 1995 Duma election had 43 parties competing. The outlook of these parties ranged from the pro-reformers, urging a faster economic transition, to neo-Stalinists, arguing for a ban on other parties and control of the media, with 41 parties somewhere in between. Parties from all political outlooks competed with only parties advocating the overthrow of the government not allowed to compete. Perhaps so many parties competed because the election seemed so wide open. No one was sure what would happen, and every group had a chance of gaining more than 5% of the vote. For this reason, there seemed to be no protest or boycott of the elections from any center. Why boycott an election, when you might be able to get into power through appropriate and constitutional means? The net effect of this was to promote the cause of democracy in Russia. With everyone competing, the elections themselves became the appropriate way to gain power.

Second, the winners were allowed to take office. The opposition victors, be they the near majority of Communist party sympathizers, the nationalist LDPR, or the democratic opposition Yabloko, assumed power once elected. This again strengthened Russian democracy and convinced leading Russian opposition figures to compete for the Russian Presidency, allowing that election to be inclusive of all views as well. Not contesting the unsavory results of the Duma election was a wise move for the Yeltsin Administration and for Russian democracy.

Third, the Duma election was not canceled. Clearly there were some factions within the Kremlin who wanted to cancel the Duma elections. Some believed it would be easier to postpone the Duma elections than to cancel the presidential elections. A number of opportunities arose that offered excuses for canceling. Election laws were not passed on time, vote counting fraud was feared, certain parties were banned and then reinstated, leading businessmen feared a Communist victory and asked for postponement, and some Kremlin-friendly Duma deputies asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the 5% barrier of the election law. In each instance, the campaign and election were allowed to proceed. Why? Likely because this was the first normal election in Russia and the authorities were interested in seeing how it turned out. Likely they figured that if it were disastrous, either in conduct or results, they could find a way to postpone the presidential election. However, first, they wanted to see if the election could be accomplished and how it might proceed. Allowing the election to proceed still left open the option of staying in power with the blessing of elections and, thus, still being on the good side of the democracy argument. SDI believes that the Duma election, with its unknown results, was less likely to be canceled than the presidential election, where stakes were higher and a Communist victory seemed likely.

Fourth, the Duma election allowed citizens to feel that they played a more important role in decision making. The Russian populace chose the winners and losers. The high turnout in the Duma election was the first inclination of the victory of the democratic presumption. One of the biggest surprises of the election was that the Russian people, through voting in such high numbers, demonstrated that elections are important to them, and they want the opportunity to choose their leaders.

One conclusion that emerged from some circles criticizing the Duma election maintained that the results of the Duma elections were unrepresentative of people’s wishes. 50% of Russian voters voted for parties that did not clear the 5% hurdle. The Yeltsin Administration frequently argues, when advocating abolishing party lists altogether or lowering the 5% barrier for the 1999 Duma election, that the current system is not reflective of the voter’s wishes and is therefore undemocratic. Our Project disagrees. In our opinion, although only four parties cleared the 5% hurdle in the 1995 Duma election, each of these parties represented fundamental segments of Russian society. The left (Communists), the nationalists (LDPR), pro-government supporters (Our Home is Russia), and reform-oriented opposition democrats (Yabloko). We believe that these four groups constitute the majority of opinions in Russian society. Each major ideological group in Russian society today can point to the Duma and say a party exists that represents its views (at least to a degree). True, perhaps the specific party for which the individual voted is not represented, but a similarly ideological party exists. The problem is not the party lists or the 5% hurdle, but instead the registration process where 43 parties were allowed to appear on the ballot. Many of these parties existed in name only or for the personal benefit or the ego of the person holding the first position. To avoid the problem of having half of the electorate vote for parties that do not make it into parliament in the future, stricter standards for party registration must be enforced. As a final argument against the unrepresentative Duma, one must also consider that 250 deputies are elected from district seats. These deputies, 77 of whom were elected independently, are to represent the people in their constituencies.

While messy at times, the 1995 Duma election demonstrated that Russia could pass its first serious test as a democracy. Voters were allowed to freely select who would represent them in Parliament, and when they selected opposition candidates, those candidates were allowed to take office without impediment by the government. The success of the Parliamentary election set the stage for the 1996 Presidential election and gave Russian democracy a momentum which made it more difficult to derail its progress by canceling the presidential election. Again Russia passes Freedom House’s criteria: the Russian parliament is elected through free and fair election.

 

C. Regional Elections

Act III of the Russian election cycle that began with the 1995 Duma election and continued with the 1996 Russian Presidential election concluded with a series of Russian elections for the heads of Russian regions beginning in the Fall of 1996 and Spring of 1997. Over that time period, a series of 52 elections were held for leaders of Russian oblasts, krais, okrugs, and autonomous republics. In the year and a half since, a handful of additional regions have conducted their gubernatorial elections.

While a detailed analysis of all of the governors elections is beyond the scope of this report, the general trends arising from the regional elections that might affect Russian democracy should be considered.

At the end of President Yeltsin’s reelection, 42 of Russia’s 89 regions already had popularly elected executive heads. These included the presidents of all 21 national republics, the governors of two krais and 17 oblasts, and the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The other regions — four krais, 33 oblasts, and ten autonomous okrugs — had leaders appointed by President Yeltsin. Russian election law required that all heads of regional administrations be popularly elected; therefore, a large series of elections needed to be held.

The regional elections were important for a number of reasons. First, control of the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament, was at stake. With the Federation Council now consisting of the heads of regional administrations and the speakers of regional legislatures, there was a chance that opposition candidates could win regional governorships and change the face of the chamber. Back in 1993 the original Federation Council consisted of popularly elected officials from the regions. However, many of the victors were the regional governors and legislative leaders. Because Boris Yeltsin had appointed these leaders in the past, the Federation Council had traditionally been sympathetic to Yeltsin’s causes. With popularly elected officials in the regions now taking seats in the upper house, the Federation Council could become a more contentious body for the Administration.

Second, after the loss by the Communist forces in the presidential election, the Communist forces were in disarray. The regional elections provided them an opportunity to regroup.

Third, The center/region relationship has always been tense. The regions have perceived Moscow as privileged and enjoying the benefits of reform while the regions are left to suffer. The regional elections could be considered a referendum on the federal government’s economic and social policies. The results of these elections might serve as a wake up call to the Kremlin, which squandered its post-election honeymoon with an ill, and thus distracted, President.

Finally, successful regional elections further ensured the acceptance of the democratic presumption at all levels of society. The routine nature of these elections would mean that Russian democracy and Russian voting had become less of an extraordinary event and more of a day-to-day occurrence.

Results of the Elections:

Going into the regional election cycle, the government planned to build upon its success in the 1996 Presidential election by coordinating the regional campaigns in the center and creating regional campaign headquarters in the regions, relying on the Our Home is Russia regional network. Our Home announced it would run or support candidates in each of the 47 gubernatorial elections.

A campaign strategy document leaked to the press and published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on July 31, 1996 outlined the government’s approach to the regional elections. Nine recommendations were made:

1. Use the President’s representative in the region during the campaign.
2. Retain the foundation of the presidential election campaign staff as a base for Our Home activities.
3. Promote the importance of the regional elections; make them analogous to the presidential elections. Hold regional elections on the same day where possible.
4. Decide which legislative assemblies are to be won back from the Communists.
5. Carefully select which governors to support and minimize the influence of Kremlin clans in this selection.
6. Avoid conflict with the incumbent governor during the campaign.
7. Limit active intervention to a small group of regions where there is particular danger of power passing to the Left or mafia forces.
8. Yeltsin should not actively participate in the campaign on a personal level.
9. Find ways to strengthen presidential control over regional authorities.

The Communists, on the other hand, viewed the regional election as an opportunity to reorganize their efforts after their presidential loss. On August 7, 1996, the Communists and their allies announced the formation of a coalition called the Popular Patriotic Union NPSR) to contest the elections. The group was a continuation of Communist and nationalist forces that had supported Gennady Zyuganov’s presidential bid. Although by far the largest faction within the group was the Communist Party, some 50 other leftist and nationalist movements joined, including the Agrarian Party, Alexander Rutskoi’s Derzhava movement, and Nikolai Ryzhkov’s Power to the People parliamentary bloc. Extreme leftist forces, such as Viktor Anpilov’s Stalinist Labor Russia party did not join. At the formation of the group, Ryzhkov stated, "This is the movement of the future...in the future, there will be only two main political forces contending for power in Russia: the party of power and the patriotic forces." The bloc relied heavily on the Communist Party’s regional network. Alexei Podberezkin, a Duma member and key advisor to Zyuganov stated at the formation that the movement also would field candidates in all regions and would support intelligent, professional, capable people regardless of their party affiliation. ₂₁

As of March 1997, at the completion of 51 gubernatorial elections, of the 51 incumbents who faced elections in 1996–1997, 24 held onto their jobs and 27 were defeated. 19 of the 27 new governors were elected primarily with the backing of the Popular Patriotic Union of Russia (NPSR). ₂₂

Lessons of the Regional Elections:

A number of lessons could be gained from these results. First, the theme of anti-Communism, which had proved so effective during the presidential campaign did not sell in the gubernatorial elections. Although attempted in the first few elections, it quickly became evident that anti-Communist rhetoric was not a good regional election issue. The regional voters were more interested in professionalism and moral character, while the regional elite sought business and professional opportunities for the governor. The efficient manager theme sold well for both incumbents and challengers. For example, Government-supported Rostov Governor Vladimir Chub and opposition-backed governor Vadim Gustov of the Leningrad Oblast both won their elections by portraying themselves as professional men who could provide concrete benefits to their regions.

Second, the government was overconfident. In September 1996, Sergei Filatov, leader of the All-Russian Movement of Public Support for the President (the group that coordinated the government’s regional election policy) predicted that of the 47 races, only four or five incumbents would be defeated. Twenty-seven ended up losing their seats. Filatov later claimed the government was too preoccupied with the Presidential election to prepare adequately for the regional elections. He argued that the poor economic situation in the regions hurt the incumbents and that the government should have removed some of the more unpopular governors prior to the elections.

Third, the government feared the elections would erode the power of the center. Alexander Kazakov, deputy head of the presidential administration in charge of the regional elections believed the elections offered the governors a dangerous alternative power base to the Kremlin, namely the people. He correctly realized that after the elections, the government would no longer be able to remove regional governors to suit their political needs, as they had previously when governors had been appointed.

Fourth, opposition was more important than party affiliation at the regional level. Opposition candidates frequently received backing from more than one opposition movement. Given the weakness of Russian party organization, especially in the regions, opposition groups would back an opposition candidate, even if he was not from their party. This made from some interesting alliances. For instance, the newly-elected Magadan governor, Valentin Tsvetkov, received the backing of Gennady Zyuganov’s Popular Patriotic Union, Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s LDPR, and Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko. This, and numerous other examples, demonstrated the weakness of party organization in Russia.

Fifth, the opposition governors elected were willing to work with the Kremlin. Most of the opposition governors elected were local entrepreneurs and managers, as opposed to true opposition ideologues. Kaliningrad governor Leonid Gorbenko ran the Kaliningrad port for more than ten years, and Swedish-trained Leningrad Oblast governor Vadim Gustov served as the former Chairman of the oblast Soviet. Such elections demonstrated that professionalism sold over ideology. The newly elected governors knew that in order to get their regions moving, they had to work with Moscow.

Sixth, voter turnout was lower than in the Presidential and Duma elections. Compared to the 70% turnouts in the legislative and presidential elections of 1995 and 1996, gubernatorial turnout averaged 46%, with a high of 60% in Saratov, and a low of 33% in Sakhalin. Voter fatigue was cited as the primary reason for low voter turnout. After voting in two historic national elections, the willingness to vote in a less important regional election was lower.

Seventh, election laws affected the outcomes of races. The election laws differed significantly from region to region. Most regional election laws required a run-off if no candidate reached 50%, but in Amur and Chita, a candidate needed only a plurality to win. Ravil Genaitulin, the incumbent Chita governor won reelection with only 31% of the vote. Minimum voter turnout also varied: most regions required a 25% turnout. In Krasnodar, however, incumbent Nikolai Yegorov dodged a bullet when his loss to Communist Nikolai Kondratenko, 25% to 57%, was negated because turnout was 47% — 3% short of the required 50%. In the second attempt, held on December 22, Yegorov lost the election with Kondratenko gaining 82% of the vote.

Finally, and most importantly, conducting the regional elections was yet another sign of the continuing growth of the democratic presumption in Russia. Although turnout was lower in the gubernatorial elections than in the national elections, the elections were still held with the public selecting its leaders and those leaders taking office. The gubernatorial elections were the final act in a three-part drama in Russia’s democratic transition. In just over one year, from December 1995 to March 1997, Russians proved that they had come to accept elections as the appropriate way for selecting their leaders — a true step forward.

 

D. Are the Rules of the Elections Free and Fair?

It is clearly not enough just to conduct elections. Elections were held throughout the Soviet era in Russia, and no one would claim that they were a valid part of any Soviet democracy. Not only must elections be conducted, but they also must held in a free and fair manner. The rules and conduct of elections are an important criteria for Freedom House when measuring the political freedoms of a country. Questions such as "Are all candidates allowed to participate in an election?" "Are voters free to vote for whatever candidate they desire in a secret ballot without intimidation?" "Are the votes tabulated accurately?" are all questions that must be considered. Fortunately, the Russian elections of 1995–1996 were primarily free and fair. OSCE observer delegations gave their endorsement of both the Duma and the Presidential elections. While shortcomings existed and improvements are needed in a number of areas, the elections of 1995/1996 were freer and fairer than expected. Nevertheless, some disturbing trends have emerged from the Presidential and recent gubernatorial elections that may portend less free and fairness in the future if preventative action is not taken.

Russian Election Law:

In order for any election to be free and fair, objective election laws must be passed so that all parties and candidates can compete on an equal playing field.

The Russian Constitution and Russian election law meet international standards for free and fair elections. The Constitution outlines the terms of the election of the Duma and the President, and the election law describes the process of the election. These laws were drafted by the legislature, especially by Viktor Sheinis of the Yabloko bloc, in conjunction with the Central Election Commission (CEC) and with the legal advice of international election law experts such as the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

The basic rules about voting are straightforward. Article 33 Section 2 of the Russian Constitution says "Citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to elect and be elected to state bodies of power and local self-government bodies, as well as to participate in referenda."

This is supplemented by the Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights of the Citizens of the Russian Federation, which became law on December 12, 1994. This document holds that the people of the Russian Federation have the right to self-government, and the legitimacy of the government depends on the expression of free will of voting citizens. The law applies to all elections at all levels of government. Russian citizens have the right to voluntary, equal, and direct political participation by secret ballot, and they have the right to elect and be elected regardless of sex, race, nationality, origin, language, religion, beliefs, associations, place of residence, property, or official status. Under the law, electoral associations (political parties) and electoral blocs (coalitions of parties) are recognized as an institutional feature of the political system. The law also sets up a hierarchy of electoral commissions to implement the election laws in central, subject, district, and local precincts. The law guarantees that candidates will get equal treatment by election laws and officials, it guarantees air time and public funding of campaigns, limits spending, and outlaws foreign financial assistance. Russians can vote at the age of 18 and can run for office at the age of 21.

On the surface, the Constitution and the Basic Guarantees meet international standards for fair and free elections, but the important questions to ask are: Were these laws implemented by the CEC; and were elections conducted according to an international standard?

How independent is the Central Election Commission?

When the Central Election Commission was set up in 1993, it consisted of 21 presidential nominees. With limited membership, the CEC could have justifiably been accused of favoritism. Therefore, to correct this problem for the 1995 Duma election, the membership of the Central Election Commission was changed to increase its perceived objectivity. Under the new system, five Commissioners were nominated by the President, five were nominated by the 1993 Duma (they included representatives from the New Regional Group, the Communists, the LDPR, Russia’s Choice, and the Agrarians), and five were nominated by the Federation Council. Leadership of the CEC was determined internally by secret ballot of the Commissioners. However, with five presidential appointees and five appointees from the upper house—;which was still heavily in favor of Yeltsin in 1995—;it was guaranteed that a Yeltsin confidant would head up the Commission. Nikolai Ryabov, previously a deputy speaker in the Supreme Soviet, was chosen to lead the Central Election Commission.

As far as the parties running for the Duma, any party appearing on the party list in the Duma election could send consultative members to the CEC. Those parties clearing the 5% hurdle were allowed to maintain their deliberative status.

The Central Election Commission was responsible for the running of all elections. The Commissioners made sure enough ballots were printed and that polling stations and volunteers were organized, registered the parties and candidates, and ruled on disputes regarding the election.

Because of its central role in the election, CEC’s objectivity and ability to make difficult decisions was vitally important. However, the CEC was often perceived to be weaker than it needed to be and, when an issue arose, would more often than not side with the Administration. Two examples will demonstrate this point. First, during the 1995 Duma election, the CEC inspected all candidate lists and signature submissions of the political parties in order to register the parties officially. A month before the election, the CEC ruled that Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko party and Alexander Rutskoi’s Derzhava party had not met all of the criteria to be registered, primarily due to technicalities. The rejection of Yabloko caused a domestic and international outcry. A subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court overturned the CEC decision within a week. This seemed to establish the precedent that although there were rules to be met in order to be registered and appear on the ballot, in reality, these were just precursory guidelines and any dispute could be appealed and would likely be won. Therefore, signature collection became a big business, with candidates and parties buying signature lists, as opposed to legitimately collecting them. In almost every case, this practice was ignored by the CEC.

Second, after the first round of the 1996 Presidential election, the Administration was worried that many of its voters, who were not as motivated as the Communist supporters, would not show up for a traditional Sunday election, preferring to remain in their dachas as opposed to returning to the city or remaining in the city over the weekend just to vote on a Sunday. A group of Yeltsin supporters decided that it would be more advantageous to hold the second round of the Presidential elections in the middle of the week so that their supporters would remain in the cities on voting day. Since they knew that the Communists would oppose this, they presented the idea of a Wednesday vote as giving the people a new holiday in the middle of the week — if the Communists opposed this, it would reflect badly on them as they would appear to be denying working people a day off —; forcing them instead to sacrifice a valued summer weekend at their dachas. Thus, when the idea was first proposed by Yeltsin supporters in the Duma, a few Communists spoke out against it; but after a night’s consideration, they backed down. In the end, the CEC set the second round of the election on Wednesday, July 3, which directly benefited the President.

It is much harder to evaluate the independence and objectivity of the regional election commissions since little reliable data are available. It nevertheless seems fair to conclude that their quality varies from region to region. In general, regional election commissions probably have the greatest improper effect at the margins, denying registration to a candidate who only barely meets registration requirements and is thus quite vulnerable to exclusion on a technicality, interpreting unclearly marked ballots as supporting one candidate instead of another, or using mobile ballot boxes to garner votes from "supporters" of particular candidates outside of the polling station itself. Overall, however, fraud at the level of regional election commissions is unlikely to have been a major factor in the 1995 Duma and 1996 Presidential elections, if for no other reason than that violations tend to occur earlier in the voting process in Russia. A collective farm chairman may inspect his workers’ ballots in a remote village, or he may simply warn his village that it will not receive new tractors or necessary feed supplies if its vote tally supports the wrong candidate — such activities can render moot the processes of vote-counting and candidate registration. While such activity may have affected outcomes in a few close races, more often than not they probably just exaggerated outcomes that were already likely. Nevertheless, this remains an area of concern and a fruitful avenue for future study.

No election can be considered free and fair unless the Central Election Commission is perceived as independent and objective.

Were the Russian Elections of 1995–1996 Free and Fair?

1995 Duma Elections: With an opposition victory the expected result of the Duma election, many parties expressed concern over ballot fraud. Some claimed that ballot boxes would be stuffed, others feared that an experimental computer vote tabulation machine would be set to alter numbers as they went from local to national levels. However, despite these fears, election observers, both domestic and international, gave the 1995 Duma election a passing grade. The fact that the opposition won (or was allowed to win), seemed to say to the electorate that this election had been conducted freely and fairly. Voters were allowed to vote freely without intimidation, and despite the occasional vote counting dispute, most votes were tabulated fairly. Official election observers from the parties were allowed to witness each step of the voting and counting process. These elections were unanimously described as more free and fair than the 1993 Duma elections, when questions emerged about voter turnout and the validity of the Russian Constitution as a result.

Still, a number of shortcomings were observed, especially in the campaigns leading up to election day. These shortcomings foreshadowed greater abuses in the following six months during the presidential campaign. For instance, as mentioned above, massive signature fraud occurred in the preparation for the Duma elections. To obtain party registration, each party needed to collect 200,000 signatures with no more than 7% from a single region. A remarkable 43 parties managed to meet these criteria. Upon closer inspection it became clear that parties had paid for signature lists and forged signatures in order to be assured of a place on the ballot.

Campaign finance fraud proved to be the most prevalent form of election misconduct. Although candidates had spending limits of $120,000 imposed on their campaigns, were limited in the type and amount of campaign contributions they could receive, and were required by law to report their financial activities to the Central Election Commission, these guidelines were routinely ignored. Party campaign contributions were primarily made in the forms of untraceable cash. As an example of this abuse, Our Home is Russia, during its first public announcement of campaign spending stated it had not spent any of its own funds and had only received the official government stipend of $18,000. Given the party’s Moscow billboard blitz and the expensive Western entertainment it had flown in for pro-Our Home rock concerts, others immediately questioned Our Home’s assertion. NDR was forced to revise its statement. All parties competing in the election had questionable financial activities, and therefore the CEC tended to ignore all abuses as long as the prerequisite forms were completed and turned in on time.

Finally, the high voter turnout overwhelmed many polling stations. Election workers had to work the entire day and then count the votes. The slow count prompted calls of vote tampering by some of the parties that did worse than expected, namely KRO and Rutskoi’s Derzhava movement. On the other hand, Women of Russia, and Russia’s Democratic Choice, two parties with a good chance of clearing the 5% barrier, accepted their fate without questioning the results. Indeed, Gaidar’s acceptance of the vote count convinced many that the vote count had been free and fair.

Overall, the voting and counting was fair, and the campaign abuses were accepted as part of the learning process and as minor enough not to have affected the outcome of the election, and therefore the 1995 Duma election was deemed free and fair.

1996 Presidential Elections: Most international observers also gave the Russian presidential election passing marks. But in the case of the presidential election, it becomes even more important to distinguish between the fairness of the campaign on the one hand and the freeness of the election and vote count on the other. Several parts of the electoral campaign were tainted. In attempting to address this question, we will consider a number of specific strands of the electoral process.

Was press coverage of the campaign "fair and free"?In a word: no. The most systematic review of television campaign coverage concluded strikingly that "the 1996 election marked a step backward from 1991." ₂₃ How could this be? In 1991 there were two national networks: RTR supported Yeltsin, while ORT criticized him freely and broadcast the views of a range of opponents. As a preliminary report from the European Institute for the Media (EIM) concluded, the national networks "marginalized Yeltsin’s opponents with the exception of Zyuganov, and toward the end of the first round Lebed; avoided discussion of Yeltsin’s record over the five years of his Presidency; concentrated on the Soviet period of Russia’s history claiming that it would be repeated if Zyuganov won; and did not discuss the details of either Yeltsin’s or Zyuganov’s proposals, whether they involved the economy, defense policy, the war in Chechnya, etc.."

Key indicators of gross unfairness are reflected in two measures. First, EIM found that Yeltsin earned 53% of all media coverage in the campaign, while Zyuganov claimed only 18%. Second, EIM evaluated the bias of the stories. For each positive story, EIM gave a candidate 1 point; for each negative story, it registered a -1. In the campaign for the first round of the presidential elections (June 16), Yeltsin scored +492; Zyuganov scored -313. In the final round of the election (July 3), Yeltsin scored +247; Zyuganov scored -240, despite the fact that Yeltsin disappeared from public view a week before the vote!

As mentioned above, the causes for this lopsided coverage were more complex. First, the campaign convinced most journalists that it was in their own interest to assist in preventing the return of the Communists. Second, the government used its ownership of the two of the three national channels and its funding of most independent newspapers to influence editorial decisions. Third, the campaign enlisted the emerging business elite, who had financed much of the campaign, to influence their media outlets. Fourth, Yeltsin and his ally Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov exercised the Mayor’s strong administrative power in Moscow to let media outlets know that their assistance was "requested" or else they might find their newspaper licenses and Moscow leases "under review." Finally, journalists were also directly paid for positive stories.

Was the financing of the campaign "free and fair"?Clearly no. The election rules specified that a campaign could spend up to $2.9 million. Private estimates of the cost of Yeltsin’s campaign range well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeltsin ran continuous television spots that were purchased at $15,000–$30,000 per minute. He employed a large campaign staff, traveled extensively, and distributed enormous amounts of high-quality campaign material. In addition, the government found it necessary to force the Central Bank to provide it an extra $1 billion to fund the campaign promises before the election.

Was the election open for all competitors who wanted to run?Yes. To become a presidential candidate, an individual had to collect one million signatures and have them certified by the Central Electoral Commission. Eleven were certified, including an oddball businessman, Vladimir Bryntsalov, and former weight-lifting champion, Yuri Vlasov.

Were voters able to vote freely?Yes. Access to polling places was convenient and safe. International observers reported few, minor, and inconsequential violations on this score. (Unfortunately, many of the international observers simply observed this part of the process and offered their judgment about the free and fairness of the entire election simply on this dimension alone.)

Was the vote counted fairly?The answer appears to be yes. But the evidence available is not conclusive. There is no question that there were serious thefts of votes in some areas. In Chechnya, for example, the Central Electoral Commission counted one million votes, despite the fact that international observers believe that fewer than 500,000 adults live in Chechnya. Even more remarkable, precisely 70.0% of people were reported to have voted for Yeltsin! Similarly in Tatarstan, it is clear that votes tallied for Lebed, Yavlinsky, and Zyuganov in the first round were, when summed by the regional election officials, transferred to the Yeltsin column. In addition, the reported voter turnout in a number of regions is implausible. In a pro-Zyuganov television advertisement made by the celebrated Russian film-maker Stanislav Govorukhin, that was in fact not shown, Govorukhin told of his own local voting station in the first round of the campaign where, he asserts, the turnout was 49% of the district at 9:00 PM but an hour later when the poll closed, it was reported to be 70%.

On the basis of the information available to observers about how many people voted, and who voted, and whom they voted for, one has no better basis for judging the vote count fair than one did in the case of Chicago in the U.S. in the 1960 Presidential election. Nixon accepted the verdict of that vote, though after-the-fact analyses make plain that Mayor Daley voted enough "dead souls" in Chicago to assure Kennedy’s victory in Illinois, and thus Kennedy’s victory over Nixon in the presidential campaign.

In sum, the 1996 Russian Presidential election receives mixed marks. The election itself appears to be free and Yeltsin seems to have legitimately won the most votes. Yet the blatant campaign abuses leading up the victory clearly mar the otherwise clean result.

Gubernatorial elections: With 51 gubernatorial elections occurring throughout Russia over the course of nine months without the glare of the international media spotlight that came with the Duma and presidential elections, the potential for abuse seemed great. What was interesting and positive is how many of the elections went off without complications. A clear majority of the elections occurred where candidates from competing factions competed, voters voted, ballots were tabulated, and the victor, regardless of ideological affiliation, was allowed to assume power. Incumbents lost in 27 of the 51 elections. Major complications or complaints were heard in only three instances.

For instance in Kransnodar, as mentioned above, the incumbent Nikolai Yegorov lost to the challenger Nikolai Kondratenko, 57% to 25%, but the results were thrown out because only 47% of the voters turned out to vote, 3% shy of the required 50% turnout. However, in the repeated election held on December 22, Kondratenko won handily.

Another complication occurred in the Amur election on September 22, where the incumbent Yuri Lyashko lost to his challenger Anatoly Belonogov by 189 votes. The Amur oblast court ruled on November 28 to annul the election results because of "massive forgery." New elections were scheduled for March 23, 1997, the same day as the Amur legislature elections, and Lyashko remained in power during the interim. In the March election, Belogonov won 60 % to 30%. In both cases, despite the challenge to the initial result, the challenger ultimately prevailed — a good sign for Russian democracy.

Unfortunately, by the Spring/Summer of 1998, more serious challenges to free and fair elections have emerged in the regions. Challenges that hopefully do not point to future abuses during national elections.

One case received international attention. In the Nizhnii Novgorod mayoral election, the reformers split the vote allowing controversial businessman Andrei Klimentiev, who had a criminal record, to win the election with 34% of the vote — just 2% more than his closest competitor, the government-backed incumbent Mayor Vladimir Gorin. ₂₄ Nizhnii Novgorod (Russia’s third largest city, formerly Gorky) has always been held up as an example of a Russian transition success story. Displeased with the result of the election, the local election commission ruled that the election was invalid and accused Klimentiev of seeking immunity from prosecution. Election law violations were charged on all sides and the election commission called for a new election. Klimentiev was then arrested in May 1998 and sentenced to six years in jail for embezzlement and forging documents. To our knowledge, this is the first time in recent Russian election history that a winner of a Russian election has been jailed. Klimentiev appealed the conviction to the Russian Supreme Court in August and attempted to reregister for the new September 27, 1998, election. His appeal was denied and he is now serving his sentence. ₂₅

Likewise, in June of 1998, Murtaza Rakhimov, the incumbent President of Bashkortostan took 73% of the vote, while his only competitor, an ally, took 9% after suggesting that the voters should vote for Rakhimov. Meanwhile true opposition candidates were excluded from the election on a variety of technicalities and the Republic’s officials refused court rulings from Moscow to reinstate them. However, few Bashkir voters were aware of the issue because the press was controlled by the government and independent news sources had been closed.

Other recent regional elections have had similar outcomes, such as Federation Council speaker Yegor Stroyev’s reelection in Orel winning with 95% of the vote, and in what must be a world record for a modern election, Nikolai Merkhushin of Mordovia’s 96.6% of the vote over sham opposition. President Yeltsin, needing regional support in the upper house, has not condemned any of these elections, but instead has sent congratulatory telegrams. The Bashkortostan case is still being investigated by federal authorities. In any case, such elections show a disturbing trend toward regional power and a willingness to fix elections. However, one must also point out that the Kremlin’s bête noire, Alexander Lebed, was allowed to win election as Krasnoyarsk governor in May of 1998. Even though accusations of fraud flew from both sides, ultimately the incumbent governor accepted Lebed’s victory.

Free and Fair Elections and the Status of Russian Democracy:

Considering the relative newness of elections in Russia, the SDI Project considers the freedom and fairness of Russian elections up to this point one of Russian democracy’s greatest accomplishments. In virtually every election, all candidates have been allowed to compete, the candidate earning the most votes has been declared the winner, and the winner has been allowed to take office. Nevertheless, Russian elections up to this point have been graded on a curve and a number of aspects of elections must be improved if they are to continue to get passing marks by international observers.

Fair Campaigns:First, Russian campaigns, especially at the presidential level, must be more fair. The abuse of incumbency in the 1996 Russian Presidential election was blatant and unacceptable. Media coverage must be objective and financial statements must be scrutinized to avoid abuse. Totally fair campaigns will take time, but the goal must be announced so bad habits do not become institutionalized in Russian election practices.

The CEC:To enforce these issues and to tackle abuses Russia needs a truly independent and objective Central Election Commission, which is not subservient to any interest other than the successful completion of elections. The CEC must operate in an open manner and not tolerate election violations. It must guarantee ballot security, organize polling observers, and double-check voting tabulations as they make their way from local, through regional, to the national level. They must also make sure that regional election commissions remain objective. While the CEC should ideally be perceived as an organization where all representatives, regardless of political views, can at least have their say about the conduct of elections, some of the regional election commissions are not so objective. Such concerns must be addressed over the next two years to guarantee the future of free and fair elections in Russia.

Education:A final major challenge for the future of free and fair elections in Russia is voter knowledge. It is not enough to have good laws on the books, these laws must be implemented and known by the voters, candidates, and parties. A poll in June of 1995 conducted by the IFES found that most voters were unaware of their voting rights. Only 15% of voters claimed to be somewhat familiar with their voting rights. Only 49% felt they had enough information to understand the election process; 34% believed family members could vote on their behalf (a common practice in the Soviet era); and less than 50% had even heard of the Central Election Commission. ₂₆ Granted this poll was taken six months before the first of the series of elections, and likely by voting in the Duma and presidential elections, the Russian voter is now more familiar with elections and voter rights, but clearly one of the major functions of the CEC before the next elections will be voter education.

 

E. Is there a significant opposition vote, de facto opposition power, and a realistic possibility for the opposition to gain power?

A final issue we want to address as a result of the Russian elections over the last two years is the Freedom House criteria for opposition to the government and the likelihood of that opposition gaining power through elections. Aspects of this issue were addressed previously in the presidential and Duma election sections; however, the question of opposition power is a worthwhile topic to follow because the transfer of power to the opposition is a watershed point in democratic transitions, and one that Russia has not yet faced.

Freedom House asks three questions, which we will address below. Is there a significant opposition vote? Is there de facto opposition power? And, is there a realistic opportunity for the opposition to gain power?

Is There a Significant Opposition Vote?

Yes. When one looks at Russian society and the results of Russian elections, one cannot help but see the large opposition Russian voting pattern. In the 1995 Duma election, nine out of ten voters voted against the party of power. In the first round of the 1996 Presidential election, two out of three voters voted against Yeltsin. In the gubernatorial elections, over half of the incumbent governors lost to challengers. The Russian government and its leaders continually poll at dismal numbers that rarely break 15% popularity. Strikes, calls for impeachment, and votes of no-confidence in the government are almost a monthly occurrence. There is certainly discontent in Russia and a strong base for opposition organization.

Yet, there is no unified opposition against the government in Russia. The last organized mass opposition to the government was the Democratic Russia Movement in the early 1990’s, which opposed the Communist Party ruling the Soviet Union. Instead, Russia today has a litany of opposition groups, which, for ideological reasons, refuse to merge to try to oust the current government. Therefore, with the opposition divided, the Yeltsin government remains in power.

The largest and most significant opposition is the Left, led by Zyuganov’s Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and which also includes the Agrarian Party, Labor Russia, and a few other smaller Communist parties. Despite the window dressing of the Popular Patriotic Union that Zyuganov used to organize his presidential bid so that he appealed beyond his own party, this opposition consists mostly of the CP-RF led by its Duma faction. Its supporters are the pensioners and others who have had the most difficulty adjusting to the economic transition. Unfortunately for the CP-RF, much of its base is older, and therefore its constituency in the future is uncertain. Furthermore, since the Presidential election, the CP-RF has at times voted with the government on key issues such as Sergei Kiriyenko’s nomination as Prime Minister and the budget. This voting with the government causes some to question the extent of the CP-RF’s opposition.

The nationalist opposition is also not organized. The most visible organization attempting to tap the nationalist sentiment, Zhirinovsky’s LDPR, votes with the pro-government faction more than any other group. The LDPR is correctly seen as an opportunistic political force, whose political ideology comes second when personal enrichment is an option. Other nationalistic sentiment is espoused by Alexander Lebed and Yuri Luzhkov at times, but these two are merely individuals, who while powerful and organizing for future presidential bids, are clearly interested more in electoral success that true nationalist opposition. Interestingly, Luzhkov is tapping into the nationalist sentiment about recovering Crimea for Russia and against the persecution of ethnic Russians in Latvia, yet at the same time claims to be a Yeltsin loyalist so as not to incur the wrath of the Administration. With such opposition, it seems any nationalist opposition vote will not be organized, but will more likely just support an individual candidate.

The democratic opposition, led by Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko movement, is perhaps the most consistently opposed organization to the current government. When Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky forces voted for the budget or the nomination of Prime Minister Kiriyenko, Yabloko voted against them. More than any other faction in the Duma, the Yabloko deputies consistently vote against the government. At the faction’s core is the belief that it is a democratic alternative to the Yeltsin Administration. A party for those who seek reform, but not the way it has been accomplished up to now. Unfortunately for Yavlinsky and Yabloko, the democratic opposition is a small constituency of perhaps less than 10%, so even if the party does offer this group a means to organize, it will have to expand beyond this base if it is to succeed electorally.

With strong ideological differences and with election laws encouraging division as opposed to cooperation, it is unlikely that one significant opposition will emerge to unite the over-two-thirds majority who oppose the current Russian government.

Is There de facto Opposition Power?

Some. The opposition groups control the Duma and therefore set the agenda for the legislative branch. However, the Duma is the weaker branch of government, and although the executive branch prefers to work with the Duma and play by the legislative process as described in the Constitution, for the last four years there have clearly been limits to this tolerance. Yeltsin’s threats to unilaterally change the election law, run for a third term, or enact by decree the economic reforms mandated by the IMF are examples of the executive branch’s willingness to circumvent the opposition-led Duma. Nevertheless as the August/September 1998 economic and political crisis has shown, the Duma has gained some political power against the Administration by forcing Yeltsin to withdraw the nomination of Viktor Chernomyrdin in favor of Yevgeny Primakov and demanding that some of its members be included in the new cabinet. Going eyeball to eyeball with the President during the crisis, for the first time, the President blinked.

There is also some opposition power in the regions. Incumbent governors lost in 27 regions in the 1996–7 gubernatorial election, and due to the nature of the Russian constitution and Russian’s penchant for strong executive branches, when an opposition governor controls a region, often he can rule as he sees fit. However, most of these opposition leaders have recognized that more benefit can be gained from cooperating with the Kremlin instead of challenging it. Therefore, while opposed to many government policies, the opposition governors often find it in their hearts to work with Moscow. Perhaps this is most evident in Kemerovo Oblast, where Aman Tuleev was considered a star of the Russian left. He ran for President and withdrew days before the election advising his supporters to support Zyuganov. However, when Yeltsin was forming his new cabinet in 1996, he decided to appoint Tuleev as Minister for CIS Relations. Tuleev accepted and a leading opponent of the government, who had previously supported Zyuganov, now found himself as a member of the government. It will be interesting to observe if Alexander Lebed, the governor of Krasnoyarsk, will remain a staunch opponent of the Yeltsin government, or whether he will begin to cooperate with the Administration to receive perks for his region.

All parts of the opposition also have difficulty getting their message to the people. As shown by the EIM surveys of the 1996 Presidential election, most forms of media are controlled by interests that exert a heavy hand in editorial control and favor those in power. While Russia is unlikely to again witness unified media support of one candidate in the next presidential election, the financial owners of the Russian media are still unlikely to side with opposition candidates. At most, opposition figures and parties can rely on opposition newspapers and guaranteed airtime to get their views across to the people.

Is There a Realistic Opportunity for the Opposition to Gain Power?

Not at the moment. True power in Russia comes from controlling the presidency. As noted earlier, we at SDI do not believe that Boris Yeltsin would have given up his post as President had he lost to Gennady Zyuganov.

The opposition, be it left, nationalist, or democratic is allowed to freely contest elections for the Duma and for governorships, but control of the Presidency may still be too powerful to give up at the moment. There is too much at stake and too many people fear reprisals should someone new come into power and decide to change the rules. Granted, things have improved in this area over the last four years. Where previously the secretive Yeltsin bodyguard, Alexander Korzahkov, was threatening to blockade the Parliament to prevent the election from occurring, we now have the Chernomyrdin re-nomination crisis being resolved not by dismissing the Parliament, but by appointing another candidate who would be approved. Still, it is questionable whether the current government in its weakened state would be willing to let go of power to a true opposition leader.

What Does This Mean for Russian Democratization?

A peaceful, voluntary transfer of power is Russia’s greatest challenge and something that has not been accomplished in 1000 years of Russian history. Indeed, as Michael McFaul of Stanford has argued in the New York Times, Russia without a legitimate opposition with a chance of gaining power only hurts Russia’s democratic chances in the long run. Without a chance of realistically gaining power, the opposition groups, which were willing to play by the election rules, will start to work outside the system and the people, frustrated with the current government and not seeing a legitimate plausible alternative, will increasingly move towards more radical groups. For Russia’s democratic experiment to succeed, it must allow a legitimate opposition not only to form, but also to have a realistic chance of attaining power through elections. ₂₇

 

F. Are the people free from domination from the military, foreign powers, totalitarian parties, religious hierarchies, economic oligarchies, or any other powerful group?

The Russian people are freer than they have ever been since their lands were gradually unified under the tsars during the second millenium. The Russian military has never successfully orchestrated a coup d’etat, and it is now further away than ever from that eventuality. Not only did the combined might of the Defense, Interior, and KGB chiefs fail to seize power in 1991, but the military is currently a shambles and is thus unlikely to be able to undertake any kind of coordinated action. The fiasco in Chechnya in 1994–1996 was not only an example of this domestic impotence, but was also a factor that weakened the military still further. ₂₈ While military men are active in politics, their brightest stars (including Alexander Lebed, Andrei Nikolaev, and the late Lev Rokhlin) chose to work within the system by running for office rather than staging rebellions in the Kremlin.

While one might expect a weak military to make the Russian people vulnerable to the domination of foreign powers, this has not been the case. Russia retains its nuclear arsenal and no neighboring state has even hinted at aggression aimed at Russia.

Nor do the Russian people face a threat from totalitarian parties or religious hierarchies. Despite their opposition to the Yeltsin Constitution of 1993, parties like the Communists have chosen to work within the existing system rather than to oppose it outright. While some Communist die-hards continue to revere the heroes of Soviet days past, the party’s top leaders (such as Gennady Zyuganov and Gennady Seleznev) espouse democratic values and the more militant breakaway factions led by radicals like Viktor Anpilov have failed at the polls and have not managed to rally significant support on the streets. Religious hierarchies have not questioned Russia’s democratic aspirations and have instead worked closely with its elected leadership.

The greatest threat to the Russian people’s newfound freedom comes from that group of financial-industrial magnates commonly known as the "oligarchs." These tycoons control major banks and media outlets as well as many of the country’s most lucrative industrial assets. Vladimir Potanin, for example, owns Uneximbank (the third largest bank by capital), Norilsk Nikel (one of the world’s largest producers of nickel, cobalt and platinum group metals, Sidanko (the Russian oil company with the second-largest reserves), and the Prof-Media holding company (which owns large stakes in the newspapers like Izvestiya and Komsomolskaya Pravda as well as regional television and radio stations). Another notable is Boris Berezovsky, with large holdings in Logovaz (a major car distributor and importer), ORT (Russia’s largest national television channel), the national newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, and Sibneft (the oil company ranked seventh in Russia by reserves). Other oligarchs include Alexander Smolensky (SBS-Agro), Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Menatep-Yukos), Vladimir Gusinsky (Most Group), and Mikhail Friedman (Alfa). ₂₉

These oligarchs have used their economic power to buy political influence, which they have then used to augment their own economic empires still further. They cemented their power by providing the financial muscle behind Yeltsin’s reelection campaign in 1996, helping him recover from what looked to many like a sure defeat as late as December 1995. Not only did they pour funds into the President’s campaign, but their media outlets grossly biased their coverage in favor of Yeltsin, as described above. Once Yeltsin won, they then sought to gain still more state property through the privatization process, where, as Grigory Yavlinsky pointed out in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, they were previously able to gain huge shares of industry for a fraction of their actual worth. When they could not agree on who would get the telecommunications giant Svyazinvest, the first company to be auctioned off with a system of competitive bidding, they attacked each other "not with bullets but through allegations of graft aired by their media outlets." ₃₀ Even worse, the winner (Potanin) apparently used his allies in government (reputedly led by Anatoly Chubais) and his media holdings to get one of the losers (Berezovsky) removed from his post as deputy head of the Russian Security Council after the latter launched a bitter media attack accusing the former of corruption. These oligarchs now brag that they can essentially pick the next president merely by backing the person financially, and will certainly try to do so.

The development of this financially rooted oligarchy endangers Russia’s nascent democracy both by threatening to corrupt it and by its potential to undermine the system of free and fair elections. If the oligarchs succeed in uniting around a single candidate in the year 2000 as they did in 1996, they can greatly influence the kind of media coverage and political support that any opponent candidate is likely to obtain. And if they become too cozy with whoever wins that election, they may find that it is no longer in their financial interest to have democracy at all.

The financial crisis of 1998 appears to have weakened the political position of the tycoons, although it may just allow for a few new faces to replace some of the old ones. For democracy to succeed in Russia, it is desirable that the old oligarchs remain weakened and divided while many new ones challenge their formerly preeminent position.

 

G. Conclusion

When SDI began to focus on the Russian elections four years ago in the Fall of 1994 and the Winter of 1995, we took an internal poll of SDI staff and colleagues on the likelihood of Russia conducting its Duma and Presidential elections. At the height of the Chechen War with Yeltsin’s ratings in the single digits, we all gave the odds at not much better than 50/50. Yet four years later, Russia has completed its first normalized election for the Parliament in which the opposition won handily; its President has subjected himself to a vote of confidence by his citizens for the first time and has allowed the opposition to contest the election; and every one of its 89 regions is ruled by an elected official. Yes, Russia has a long way to go in its democratic transition — its campaigns have been biased, it is questionable whether the opposition could have won the Presidency in 1996, and election abuses in the regions seem to be rising, and economic oligarchs look after their own interests first to the detriment of the Russian society — but given the challenges Russia has faced over the last four years, time and time again, Russian leaders and Russian citizens have made the choices that have sustained the democratic transitions. New challenges to that transition will emerge in future elections. The most obvious will be electing a Yeltsin successor. But Russia has a positive track record over the past four years, and we consider the future of Russian elections as hopeful.

 

 

Chapter Two: Russian Political Parties

Introduction

There is little agreement on a definition of a political party. Is a party merely an election machine that comes together every few years to give the voters a choice among candidates? Or is it a political organization that represents the citizens’ views to elected officials? What qualities are needed for a group to be considered a political party? Does it need a platform? A concrete list of members? A regional organization? Electoral success? One of the problems with defining political parties is that they vary so widely across the world, from the "election machines" of the United States with loose discipline and membership, to the more defined organizations that determine the government leadership in many countries. This report is not the place for a comprehensive academic debate on what constitutes a political party. For our analysis of Russian political parties, we have chosen to use academic V. O. Key’s classic definition of political parties. Key states that parties exist in three different levels of society: in the electorate, as organizations, and in the government. ₃₁

Why Parties?Although there is much debate about the definition of political parties, there is little doubt that political parties are an important part of any modern democracy. No modern democracy exists without political parties. Political parties in democratic societies are vital because they give individual citizens an organized voice in government. They are the major vehicle for aggregating interests in a diverse republic and articulating the interests into coherent plans of action. Parties offer a stabilizing societal effect by providing a means for the citizens to hold elected officials accountable as a group for the success or failure of their programs.

Why are parties important in Russia’s democratic transition? Currently, most Russians do not belong to political parties. After 70 years of one party rule, they are justifiably skeptical of political party intentions. However, for Russian democracy to succeed, it needs functioning democratic institutions such as a stable political party system. The people must have a way to influence the government and hold the government accountable. Without parties, the people will feel alienated from government policies and powerless to affect change. With such disillusionment, more radical means of changing government become likely when the government does not meet the needs of the people.

Today, most observers, SDI included, consider the development of Russian political parties since the democratic transition began a disappointment. As will be seen in this chapter, the vast majority of Russians not only do not belong to political parties but are also skeptical of political party intentions. The only place within Russian society where parties actively exist today is within the State Duma. All but the Communist Party fail to have adequate regional organizations, and many of the parties do not have comprehensive platforms that allow the electorate to identify one party from another.

Yet, building a democratic institution like a political party system is an extended process which cannot be easily done in a year or two. Progress has been made. As mentioned in the chapter on Russian elections, the parties that exist within the Duma can be largely identified by their political outlooks. Leadership positions within the Duma, such as committee chairmanships, are distributed according to party membership and faction size. The Duma parties are making an effort to expand their appeal beyond Moscow into the regions. And most of the parties currently in the Duma stand a good chance of remaining in the Duma after the 1999 Duma election.

The most important prerequisite for a functioning political party system to be established in Russia is stability. Keeping the rules of the electoral game the same will allow the developing parties within the Russian Duma the opportunity to organize, establish platforms, gain members and candidates, and to expand into the regions. Changing the Russian election law is the single greatest threat to Russian political party development.

For the last four years, the goal of SDI’s democratization strand has been to work directly with the leadership of the principal democratic, reformist parties on party-building at the local party level through our Russian Political Party-Building Program, and to maintain active relations with all major political parties in Russia regardless of ideology. SDI has had active contact with Yabloko, Our Home is Russia, Russia’s Choice, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Russia, the Agrarian Party, Women of Russia, and many smaller groups.

Unlike other programs that rely primarily on sending Western experts to Russia to address party-building and campaigning issues, SDI’s Party-Building Program has emphasized bringing the top Russian political party leaders and decision makers to the United States to observe Western experiences firsthand, allowing them to meet their American counterparts as equals and to reflect on their own experiences and needs from a distance.

The conclusions in this chapter are based on a combination of research and first-hand experience with Russia’s political parties. Using V.O. Key’s outline, we begin by investigating Russian parties in the electorate, by considering how the Russian parties are perceived among the population, whether they have a clear ideological orientation, whether people join the parties, and if the parties once in power deliver on their promises. We then turn to parties as organizations. What are the structures of Russian political parties and how active are they beyond Moscow? Finally, we address parties in the Russian government. Are elected officials members of parties and are the positions of power in the Duma assigned along partisan lines? We propose that party development, a key part of a democratic society, has been too slow over the last four years in Russia, but some optimistic signs have emerged, especially among the parties in the Duma.

 

A. Parties in the Electorate

Parties are essentially groups of people seeking to attain political power. To win elections, parties must appeal to the voters and therefore have a strong presence in the electorate. The citizens should be able to distinguish among parties based on the parties’ beliefs. The parties should solicit some sort of membership from the electorate and be required to deliver on promises made once a party has achieved power. This section will investigate how Russian parties have fared with the Russian electorate.

To what extent do parties represent and communicate an orientation, basic values and preferences, sufficient for citizens to distinguish among them and find a party on which they more or less agree?

In order for parties to succeed, they must be able to communicate an orientation to the populace that is identifiable. The citizens must understand what the parties stand for. Unfortunately, until recently, Russian political parties could not be easily identified by their political orientation. In 1995 in Russia, 43 parties competed in the Duma election. A joke at the time said that "three people on a couch" constituted a political party in Russia. Obviously, many of these "parties" running for election were just personal campaign organizations for the "party leader." Running as the head of a party might increase the chances of the leader in a district race. Clearly most of these parties had no chance of winning and could not communicate a comprehensive platform to the electorate. For example, a voter would be hard-pressed to explain the differences in platform, let alone the parties themselves from Forward Russia!, Common Cause, and the Pamfilova-Gurov-Lysenko party, even though all three groups were considered "pro-democracy" groups. In each case, the "party" promoted an individual politician’s political chances. In the parties listed above: former Finance Minister Boris Fedorov, Duma Deputy Irina Khakamada, and former Minister of Social Services Ella Pamfilova all won single-mandate seats.

Why were all of these pseudo-parties allowed to run? First, on the surface, they met the minimal requirements to compete in the election, (party lists, signatures, charters, etc.). Second, the Central Election Commission was so overwhelmed attempting to set up the Duma election that it did not have the resources to check closely into the legitimacy of each party. During the attempts it made to ban a party from the Duma election, its ruling was overturned by the Russian Supreme Court, as in the case of two of the more legitimate parties, Yabloko and Alexander Rutskoi’s Derzhava. With the rebuke of their decisions on Yabloko and Derzhava, the CEC seemed to adopt the position that anyone who nominally met the election requirements was to be printed on the ballot. Parties from KEDR (the environmental movement) to our particular favorite, the Beer Lover’s Party, competed in the elections. The majority of these parties that failed to clear the 5% hurdle understandably disappeared after their defeat.

The four parties that cleared the 5% hurdle and gained party list seating, as well as a couple of other parties that just missed 5%, did communicate a basic political orientation. While they are more commonly recognized by their leaders, these parties can be said to be more than just campaign machines for their most famous name:

Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CP-RF):The Communist Party of the Russian Federation claims to stand against the reforms of the last seven years. The party dominates the opposition-filled Duma and controls the Speaker’s seat. The CP-RF claims to stand up for the common man whom the economic transition left behind. The party frequently calls for strikes and protests against the current government and its policies. Economically, the Communists have had some difficulty describing their economic program. During the 1996 Presidential election campaign, after weeks of delay, Gennady Zyuganov announced his economic program to the public. It stated, that "shock therapy" of the previous four years has been a "neutron bomb of monetarism." The Communists advocated allowing more money to circulate in the economy, state support of key industries, protecting Russian industry with tariffs while supporting high-tech exports, giving tax breaks for domestic production, and encouraging foreign investment in Russia, while taking no more international loans, which make Russia less independent. ₃₂ However, some of the more hard-line members of the party were dissatisfied with the moderating stances the party was taking, prompting one party member to announce that this was merely a temporary plan and that the "maximum plan" would be announced after the election. No such plan was ever detailed. In the Parliament, even though they are the largest faction in the Duma, the Communists spend more time challenging the government proposals as opposed to initiating their own alternatives. Surprisingly, the Communists have (twice) grudgingly voted with the government on the government’s budgets, leaving questions about the seriousness of the Communist opposition commitment.

In foreign policy the Communists stand for a strong Russia and are dubious of Western efforts regarding Russia. Zyuganov has frequently criticized the IMF and believes the organization is out to undermine Russian independence and society. As with all political parties, the CP-RF is against NATO expansion. Although the party advocates the reintegration of the Soviet Union, its leadership goes to great lengths to insist that such integration is voluntary and begins with economic cooperation, not political consolidation.

Toward the Russian people, the Communist Party tries to play a dual role. First, it seeks to be the party out of power that can attract the protest vote. It defends the rights of those left behind by the economic transition. In this capacity, the Communist Party is like any democratic party out of power seeking to attain greater support by criticizing the ruling party’s policies. However, the Communist Party, even in its name alone, evokes nostalgia for an earlier time — a time when, although the people were not rich, they were at least paid on time and could take vacations. The Communist Party goes to great lengths today to say that it does not want to be Russia’s only party, it now recognizes the errors of its previous ways, and now agrees to play by the rules of an election, yet with such a diverse group of members seeking different agendas, the party cannot yet be considered a social-democratic party of the type that has developed in other transitional states of Central Europe. ₃₃

Our Home is Russia (NDR): Nash Dom Rossiya, or Our Home is Russia, is more commonly known as the "party of power." Artificially created by the government in April 1995, the party was created along with an ill-fated center-left counterpart to squeeze extreme right and extreme left forces to the margins and to give those in power a chance to have a stable political bloc in the Duma. NDR is perceived as the party of those who support the government and its policies. As Moskovsky Komsomoletsnoted at NDR’s founding, it was "unlikely that Our Home is Russia would be anything else for voters than a collection of boring bureaucrats and untalented bosses who are responsible for all of Russia’s troubles." ₃₄

Created after the former pro-government party, Russia’s Choice, split with the government over the war in Chechnya, Our Home advocated and advocates stability, perseverance, and continuing the policies implemented thus far by the government. Being the party supporting the government, Our Home is well-financed and presents itself with a slick image. Yet its head is not the President, but the former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, which has at times prevented the party from being the true "party of power."

Economically, the party has supported Yeltsin and government initiatives such as privatization and privatized land. However, during its formation, the party differed from the liberal economics of the formerly pro-government Russia’s Choice. Unlike Gaidar’s party, NDR advocated a "strong state in the economic arena." It argued for supporting government efforts for economic stabilization, creating a "socially-oriented market economy with a stable financial system," a fair budgetary and tax system, a higher value attached to the ruble, strengthening legal norms in the economy, and responsibility of the regional and federal government for social policy. ₃₅ With its support of a large number of Russia governors, NDR also sought to overcome differences between the center and the regions. In parliament, NDR usually supports the government’s agenda. Although it grumbles at times about the policies it is asked to endorse, it dutifully defends the governments’ budgets and supported the confirmation of Sergei Kiriyenko as Prime Minister even though it was their party’s leader whom Kiriyenko was replacing.

In the foreign affairs arena, NDR has also supported the President’s initiatives, including START II and the IMF bailout package. It also backed the President’s efforts in Chechnya (a major difference from Russia’s Choice). During the NDR election campaign it, to the surprise of some, spoke of the "rebirth of the Russian nation" and referred to the Russians living in the near abroad. This more nationalistic tone was in response to the popularity of the Communists and the agenda of the Congress of Russian Communities movement.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR): The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia’s agenda is less than one might imagine given its reputation. Although the party gains a lot of coverage in the media for the antics of its leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and is considered a nationalist party, in the current Duma, the party votes more often with the government than any party other than Our Home.

A strong Russia is the central theme of the LDPR’s image. At its most extreme, Zhirinovsky has advocated re-annexing Alaska and Russian soldiers washing their boots in the Indian Ocean, while his deputy Alexander Mitrofanov openly discusses the collateral damage of a nuclear weapon detonated in the Lithuanian parliament and states that Russia should "help Japanese and Chinese Americans...establish a Japanese-Chinese autonomous state in northern California, with San Francisco as its capital. ₃₆ However, when it comes to governing, the LDPR has been more responsible, voting with the government on budgets, fiscal austerity measures, and the confirmation of Sergei Kiriyenko.

Economics for the LDPR has always taken back seat to its political and security stands. However, the LDPR has been critical of both the Communist command economy and government economic policies. For example, during the 1995 Duma race, Zhirinovsky stated in a campaign speech, "Gaidar stole your savings. Look at your current salary, pensions, prices, housing medical care, schools — everything has drastically deteriorated... The essence of our program is to improve the standard of living, so that our children can study normally, so that you can enjoy free medical care, buy yourself a new suit, and travel to a friend’s wedding or a relative’s funeral." ₃₇ In his speech to the party congress that year, Zhirinovsky argued for a multi-sector economy. He advocated a more interventionist state to help with industrial production and international market expansion for Russian goods, and control of natural resource exports. Since the election, however, the party has tended to vote with the government on major economic matters.

In foreign policy the LDPR supports a strong Russia, and considers the West Russia’s greatest enemy. Often its leaders will take inflammatory stances opposed to Western actions just to tweak the West. For example, Zhirinovsky flew to Iraq in violation of the no fly zone during the weapons inspection crisis early in 1998 to "deliver humanitarian aid." LDPR members have spoken out loudly against NATO expansion, NATO actions against the Serbs, and Western efforts to isolate Saddam Hussein.

In reality, the highest priority of the LDPR is not the rhetorical strong Russia that Zhirinovsky and others advocate, but keeping the LDPR in power, where its members can take advantage of the perks of political life. As Richard Nixon wrote in his last book, Zhirinovsky has "intentionally adopted the extravagant posture of a holy fool, or yurodiviye — an opposition figure, who because everyone knows he is not up to the job, is not punished for his outrageous views. The Russian people have a soft spot for holy fools, but the latter have never become Russian leaders, as Zhirinovsky will [did] discover when he enters the presidential sweepstakes." ₃₈

There certainly are those among the population who are true believers in the LDPR’s nationalist rhetoric, but they obviously do not follow the party’s voting record. Many LDPR supporters vote for the party as a protest vote to spite those in power, or merely to enjoy the colorful Zhirinovsky.

Yabloko: Yabloko, the "apple" party, has always held itself out as the democratic opposition to the Yeltsin Administration. The party argues that there is another way for the current reform to go in Russia. Yabloko believes the Yeltsin Administration has bastardized democratic reform and has transformed it into a form of robber-baron or criminal capitalism where connections matter more than the rule of law and those in power have used their positions to enrich themselves and their friends. Yabloko holds that Russians should have the option of being for democracy and capitalism, yet be against the current government and the current state of affairs. To that end, the party has advocated over the last four years an end to the war in Chechnya, resignation of senior members of the government, sincere tax reform, tougher laws against corruption, foreign investment in Russia, and responsible governing. The bloc has been the primary source of the Duma election law. On foreign policy the party is for cooperation with the West, while still opposing NATO expansion into the former Soviet sphere of influence. ₃₉

Others: A few other parties that failed to clear the 5% hurdle also had identifiable political orientations. Most notably Russia’s Democratic Choice, led by former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. Russia’s Democratic Choice was the party that advocated strong economic reform as implemented during the first years of the Russian transformation. The party and its leaders were closely tied with "shock therapy" and consequently the harsh economic effects of this policy. Russia’s Democratic Choice was also considered a party with strong pro-Western leanings. Given the frustration with reforms in the 1995 Duma election, Russia’s Democratic Choice was most closely blamed for the problems of the previous years and therefore fared poorly.

Another party that had a clearly-defined orientation was Viktor Anpilov’s unrepentant Labor Russia movement. This party held that the policies conducted from Mikhail Gorbachev onwards were a mistake and advocated a return to communism. It supported one-party rule, the rebirth of the Soviet Union, and a return to the command economy. Anpilov’s movement appealed to enough voters to nearly clear the 5% hurdle.

Did it work?

Could voters identify what the various parties stood for? One way of determining if voters can distinguish among the party platforms is by looking at the type of voters that voted for each of the major parties. Harvard researchers Joshua Tucker and Ted Brader asked in their research of voting trends in the 1993 and 1995 Duma elections whether voters provided their allegiance to the various parties on a rational basis. More simply: "Are the core voters for a party the type of voters that one might expect given the party’s outlook and leadership? Tucker and Brader found that the voters exhibited sensible, anticipated cleavages and that these cleavages remained stable from the 1993 to 1995 elections. For example, core Communist party voters were those displeased with the economic transition, those who had been members of the CPSU, and older voters. The LDPR’s core support, while not as loyal as the Communists came from men and younger voters. The LDPR’s backers have shifted slightly from opponents of Western influence in 1993 to proponents of law and order in 1995. Our Home voters are centrist voters who favor less radical economic reform than Yabloko or Russia’s choice, but more radical that the CP-RF or LDPR. Surprisingly, NDR’s appeal was stronger as a centrist party than a pro-government party. Finally, Yabloko is the leading party of urban liberals who support market reform. ₄₀ Given these findings, it would appear that the major parties are at least projecting an image that can be identified by the electorate.

To what extent do voters associate themselves with or join a party?

Even when it was the only game in town, under 10 % of Soviet citizens were members of the Communist Party. Granted the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not a party in the democratic sense, still with relatively few members, party membership in any form never became ingrained in the Russian political psyche.

Today, Russians are skeptical about political parties. After 70 years of one-party rule, the term "party" has taken on a negative connotation. Likewise, today’s parties in Russia have not sprung from the masses, but rather from the political leaders, who frequently have used them to their own ends and have formed and dissolved party affiliation at a confusing pace. Few of those organizations were interested in developing a permanent membership base, but instead were more concerned with gaining as many votes as possible in the next election and competing against their nearest competitor.

Perhaps such actions are adequate for a party. In the United States to become a party member, one need only register with the local voting council and vote in elections — no dues are required, no statement of loyalty, no voting on party platforms, no official membership cards. The American parties are maintained by a handful of paid workers and a large number of volunteers who work during election seasons. However, there is a clear difference between the Russian lack of membership and the American passive membership.

Stephen White, Richard Rose, and Ian McAllister, in their excellent book on Russian voting, asked in a 1994 poll whether Russians identified with any particular party or movement. Their studies found that only 22% of Russians identified with a party compared to 87% in the United States and 92% in Great Britain. White, Rose, and McAllister found only 2% of the electorate in Russia are strongly committed partisans who trust parties in general and identify with the party for which they vote.

Why is this important to Russian democracy? They argue that "the formation of party identification in turn reflects a lengthy process of political socialization begun in childhood. Second, party identification remains stable over a long period of time. Third, party identification is separate from the act of voting, for even if a person does not vote in an election, he or she can identify with a party. Party identification is a filter through which individuals view the political world. In an established democracy, a majority of voters have sufficient trust in a party to identify with it." Identification prevents extreme swings in voting and emergence of "flash" parties. Their data shows that this identification does not exist in Russia, which is dangerous to Russian democratic success. ₄₁

Among those who identified with parties in Russia, the Communist Party had the highest proportion of committed identifiers. Fifty-nine percent of those who voted for the Communists in 1993 also identified with the party. Thirty-six percent of Agrarian voters identified with that party; 32% of Russia’s Choice voters identified with their party; and 25% of Yabloko voters identified with Yavlinsky’s party.

With so few people identifying with parties, White, Rose, and McAllister point out the majority of Russian voters are uncommitted, mistrusting voters. They might be willing to vote for a leader of a party, but they are not dedicated in any significant way to that party. Therefore, Russian elections are not registering popular commitments to parties (and consequently democracy), but instead are referenda on leader’s personalities and the state of Russian affairs. This means that Russian parties who were victorious in 1993 could not rely on their earlier supporters to back them again in 1995 because the parties did not have broad-based support.

More recent surveys have shown greater voter attachment to parties. Joshua Tucker and Ted Brader in the paper cited above found mounting evidence for Russian party attachment. Through their research they discovered that "1.) by 1995 a sizeable plurality of Russians displayed partisanship consistent with being attached to a party; 2.) Party attachment increased significantly between the parliamentary elections of 1993 and 1995; 3.) Aggregate levels of party attachment declined during the presidential election of 1996, but the partisanship of attached voters was all-the more apparent; and 4.) Russians become attached to parties in a rational, sensible, manner. Cleavages among attached partisans are predictable from the political positions of each party and its leadership." ₄₂

Tucker and Brader noted that asking if a person "identified" with a party skewed survey results — likely because of negative perceptions of the term "party." Instead, using survey data from Tim Colton and William Zimmerman, they attempted to find party attachment by observing if citizens surveyed voted for the party they had identified earlier in the campaign. They called these voters "core voters." 54% of Russian voters displayed this loyalty to their party choice. While not a huge number by Western standards, Tucker and Brader note that this signals higher stability and less chaos in the decision-making process noted by other Russian election accounts. It is also a significant improvement over 1993 where a Colton and Jerry Hough survey found only 34% core voters. It is important to note however, that core voting does not necessarily mean activism or membership within a party.

Will this emerging voter attachment transfer into open support or even membership for parties or is it more likely to remain passive in the upcoming Duma elections? It is difficult to say. Certainly, with its loyal followers, the Communist Party will continue to enjoy support. Other parties have more difficulty gaining activists. Our Home is Russia has never been perceived as a mass movement swelling from the people like Democratic Russia of the early 1990s. Instead, NDR was a government-created entity, whose highest profile members were governors and their administrations who owed their position and therefore their loyalty to Yeltsin. Such governors were expected to join Our Home and toe the party line. In one sense, NDR was similar to the old Communist Party in the fact that membership in the party allowed access to those in power and perhaps means of career advancement. The party, despite its high profile, has never been the type of party that individual citizens simply join. The LDPR is still considered Zhirinovsky’s party, and despite suspected wealth and a some regional representation, does not have massive membership. Yabloko, as well, has made efforts over the last four years to expand its operations to the regions and gain more members, but like the LDPR does not have a large number of official members.

Despite the efforts of parties to become a more mass-based movements and despite the apparent trend toward some party attachment, it seems unlikely that the Russian public’s skeptical attitude toward parties and party identification is likely to change greatly between now and the scheduled 1999 Duma elections. For Russian citizens to become active participants in parties, a number of parties will have to remain in successive Dumas and the parties will have to continue to expand in many regions.

To what extent do parties, once in government, deliver on promises made to the electorate?

The Russian Constitution grants large powers to the President and the executive branch of government; therefore, parties based in the legislative branch begin at a disadvantage when they attempt to deliver on any promises made to the electorate. The agenda for running the country is clearly set by the President and his government.

A second disadvantage that parties in the Russian legislature face is the number of factions in the Duma. The Duma parties are not like the U.S. Congress where two parties compete against each other and act as alternatives in policy recommendations. In the U.S., the Republican and Democratic Parties have agendas they are attempting to pass and they must either have enough votes to pass their bills, enough votes to prevent the other party from having their proposals passed, or they must compromise with each other. Having only one alternative party in the legislature makes the act of legislating more straightforward.

Russia, on the other hand, resembles fragmented European parliaments with four party factions and three other political factions in the Duma. The individual faction is smaller and must deal with more factors passing legislative agendas. More compromises must be reached with other factions to build a coalition to pass a bill, and each individual party has less control over committees and the overall agenda of the Duma.

Given the institutional challenges of a weak Duma and number of factions, Russian parties find it difficult to deliver on promises made to the electorate. Often the parties have more success blocking legislation as opposed to advocating it. For example, the Communist Party has opposed production-sharing agreements and agricultural land privatization. Its members have been able to hinder the advancement of both causes. Likewise, the LDPR has worked vigorously to stop START II passage.

Each party during the election has a platform and writes a manifesto. These platforms are approved by party members at party congresses before the election, but often these manifestos are merely wish lists with little hope of passage. In addition to the institutional challenges to get these platforms passed in the Duma, there is the problem that is not unique to Russia — many promises made are merely election tools to get the party elected. In some ways these statements of broad principles that have mass appeal are useful for setting the agenda for the faction or even the parliament, but it is often unrealistic to think that one party can deliver on such issues. For example, most parties were against the Chechen War. Their stances reflected the population’s view and together the parties united made the Duma an arena against the war, but despite this unity, the war did not end because of legislative pressure, and certainly no single party in the legislature could claim that its stance stopped the war.

Another problem we observed through our dealing with the factions in the Duma is a lack of commitment to the electorate. The parties once in the Duma lack a sense of obligation to the electorate. There is little fear of electoral reprisal for actions taken while in the Duma. The Communist Party has reversed itself a number of times. The LDPR, despite it’s critical rhetoric, votes more with the government than any faction other than the pro-government Our Home. In truth, there have not been enough elections to determine if the electorate will hold the parties responsible while in the Duma. In the 1995 Duma election, 157 of 450 incumbents were reelected, and three of the eight factions in the 1993 Duma competing in the 1995 elections were returned to the parliament. Only Russia’s Democratic Choice was harshly punished for its previous economic stands and failed to earn list seats. The Duma will have to wait until its next election to see whether they will be held accountable by the voters.

A visit to any Duma office versus a Congressional office shows a difference in constituent relations. Congressional offices are crammed with staffers, many of whom are answering letters and queries from constituents. A member of Congress expects thousands of letters daily from his district, and if he hopes to be reelected, responds to most and weighs the concerns of his local voters’ opinions on key issues. A Duma deputy’s office is a often a two-room cubby hole with the Deputy and an assistant or two. There are no apparent signs of letters coming in from voters or letters going out explaining votes or addressing needs of individual voters. Although Duma members travel back to their district one week a month, there is still a sense of distance from the Russian voters in the Duma deputies offices.

Why is there a lack of accountability to the Russian electorate? The reasons are both institutional and cultural. Institutionally, the legislature is divided between list seats, who have no responsibility to voters in the regions, and district seats who do. Ideally, as Alexei Arbatov of Yabloko says, those elected from the party list are more concerned about the fate of Russia as a whole, while those elected from a district are concerned about the needs of their constituency in those regions. This works in principle, but in reality, those elected from the list often seem concerned with their own well-being and gaining advantages from their position, while those elected from the regions are interested in serving the regional bosses, who can ensure their reelection. ₄₃ Neither practice is unique to Russia. U.S. Congressmen earlier this century were selected by state party bosses and some used their position to gain advantages. (Today, some feel that Congressmen still do, when they see the phenomenal salaries demanded by an ex-Congressman now serving as a lobbyist.)

Both groups of deputies from party lists and from districts show that the Russian voter does not come first in the minds of the Duma Deputies. For Russian democracy to succeed this must change, both from the electorate in elections which will demand that parties deliver on promises made and from the deputies who see it in their best interest to address the needs of the voters.

 

B. Parties as Organizations

All parties need some sort of organizational structure. In the United States, parties are organized on a national level, in both houses of Congress, at the state level, and at the local level. American parties at the national level focus on presidential campaigns and putting on the national convention. The party caucuses in the Senate and House of Representatives focus on the races for these chambers. State parties work on races for state-wide election, and local party organizations focus on local elections. These organizations remain from year to year despite personnel changes within the party and the party’s electoral fortunes. A sign of a strong party is that the party organization can survive changes in leadership and electoral defeat. Likewise, a strong party system does not see a high turnover of parties. How does the Russian party system fair on the organizational level?

To what extent do parties exist as established organizations? How extensive is the active cadre as a percentage of the electorate? How active are the cadre members at every level of the organization?

The Russian party system has clearly made progress over the past four years. Of the 43 parties that competed in the 1995 Duma elections only a handful continue to exist on any significant organizational level. Some may exist on paper and their leaders may claim to lead a movement, but in reality, most have faded into nothingness. Some organizations receded because they could not withstand the departure of a prominent leader. Nikolai Travkin’s departure from the Democratic Party of Russia and Alexander Lebed’s departure from KRO set both parties back significantly. Other parties disappeared because without an election victory, they could not sustain any organization, Boris Fedorov’s Forward Russia!, Irina Khakamada’s Common Cause, and the Rybkin Bloc all disappeared after failing to clear the 5% hurdle in the Duma election.

On the other hand, those parties that did clear the 5% hurdle in the Duma election and went on to gain list seats were given a leg up and were guaranteed (barring dissolution) four years of having a role on the Russian political scene. This time has allowed them to consolidate their victories, work together as a legislative team, and focus on organizing.

Clearly all four parties are organized within the Duma. Much of their organizational strength draws from their Duma factions. Within the Duma, they have party leadership, committee chairmanships, and party meetings. These parties also have offices of varying degrees of activity outside of the Duma in Moscow, which could be considered national headquarters. Of the two offices that members of the SDI team have visited, the Yabloko office is a suite located on the Novy Arbat and at the time of writing is in the process of being staffed. The Our Home office is in the Menatep Bank building and is a flurry of activity. The Communist office was described to us by a Duma member as a house with a small staff, and the LDPR has more than one office in Moscow.

Although in varying degrees of organization, all of these national offices aspire to have an office manager, a press department, a regional coordination office, a strategy group, and a training department. In March 1998, these functions were all active at Our Home offices, and were being established at Yabloko. Nevertheless, these parties are moving in the correct direction.

The parties also hold national congresses (conventions) yearly, where representatives from the party regional organizations come to Moscow to discuss with national party leaders party issues and party leadership positions. Most parties have a leadership council of 30 or so that meets monthly and an executive council chosen from the leadership council that meets weekly.

Still, despite the progress made on party organization, as shown in the White, Rose, and McAllister polls above, most Russians do not belong to a party. Therefore, within these organizations, with the exception of the Communists, who can rally their members in a grass-roots campaign as was seen in their distribution of campaign literature and their election poll monitoring, the rest of the parties rely on a handful of activists. Many of these activists are Duma staff members, governor staffers, and others who have a direct connection somehow to the party. Volunteerism in Russia for political party activity does not exist on any major level except for the Communists. This civic activity must eventually develop in Russia and cannot be easily created in a society with little such civic behavior in its background. For this to happen, it is important for the parties to focus on their organizational activities. They must have strong national organizations that can assist in providing material and training for interested activists. A system must be created to recruit new party members and nurture them once they have expressed interest in the party. Currently most parties do not develop potential members and volunteers adequately.

An additional organizational challenge to any of these parties is whether they can survive a change in leadership or senior personnel. Would Yabloko exist without Yavlinsky? Would LDPR remain without Zhirinovsky? What will happen to Our Home now that Chernomyrdin is no longer Prime Minister? What occurs to the Communists if Zyuganov quits?

Our belief is that Yabloko is the best organized to handle such a challenge. Clearly the party is the party of Yavlinsky, and he unifies the party and is the unquestioned leader. Still, the party consists of a number of talented individuals from many fields including Vladimir Lukin, Alexei Arbatov, Viktor Sheinis, and Vyacheslav Igrunov, all of whom share a common belief in the reorganization of reform. Yabloko’s members join because it is a professional group with a clear agenda. They do not join merely to be on Yavlinsky’s team. Furthermore, the party withstood the loss of one of its founding members, Yuri Boldyrev, and continued on. A Yavlinsky departure would certainly be difficult to overcome, but Yabloko is better equipped to handle such a challenge than any of the other parties.

Unlike Yabloko, the LDPR is Zhirinovsky through and through. Should something happen to the party leader, the party would quickly disintegrate. Beyond unifying the party, members join the LDPR for political perks and advantages. While Yabloko stands for clear policies, the LDPR does not have such a strong ideology binding its members to a cause. The LDPR cause is staying in power.

Our Home shares a similar fate to the LDPR. Many members of the party joined because it could guarantee access to power because its leader was the prime minister. When Chernomyrdin was relieved of his duties as Prime Minister, the party immediately had a crisis of faith. A number of regional governors, including one who had been a deputy chair jumped ship not wishing to be tagged with the government label without having access to the government. NDR has always been a top-down organization standing more for support for Yeltsin than any particular principle. Therefore, with its top members in the government banished, those governors and their deputies who were "asked" to join because of their loyalty to Yeltsin are now leaving. NDR’s chief task at the moment is to transform itself from a party of those who had or sought access to power into a party for people who have benefited from these reforms. Given the fact that such individuals are few and the party can no longer guarantee access to power, it is unlikely NDR will survive the next Duma election.

The Communists clearly have the best organization of any party in Russia. In an ironic twist, one can truthfully state that now, even seven years after the democratic transition began, Russia remains a de facto one-party state. Building on the organization of the 70 year old CPSU, the Communists have the strongest organization, the most clearly defined membership base, and the most powerful electoral message. It is also likely that the party, because it is based on ideas over personalities, could survive the departure of Gennady Zyuganov as leader. The party also holds the Duma Chairmanship and has a number of other prominent members in Parliament, who might assume the mantle as party leader.

The party’s greatest challenge does not come from lack of organization or a leadership challenge, but from differing views within the party about how strongly to oppose the government. Some, including Speaker Seleznev and others, have worked with the government on certain issues and are more social-democratic. Others, such as Duma Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin, are more militant and believe any compromise with the government is a sell out. Such a fundamental divide down the middle of the party will surely eventually fragment the party. But as long as the party can stay as a leading proponent of opposition, it will likely be able to paper over these differences and remain organized and powerful.

How extensively are parties organized on a regional and local level?

A frequent criticism of all Russian political parties over the last four years has been that with the exception of the Communist Party, all of the parties are Moscow-centric organizations with little presence outside the capital and are thus not legitimate national political parties. For the most part, this criticism was indeed valid. The major parties, were creations of political leaders in Moscow and were thus top-down organizations which had little appeal to the masses. One of the biggest organizational tasks for the developing political party system in Russia is to create parties that have a legitimate presence in the regions and among the people. This is one of the core tasks of any political party, to serve as a connection between the people and government. Thus far, Russian parties, again with the exception of the Communists, have failed to do this.

When a Westerner meets party leaders from Russia and asks about the presence of their parties in the regions, he will invariably be told that their party (no matter how small or electorally unsuccessful it may be) has activists basedin all 89 Russian regions. Ah, says the unfamiliar Westerner, this party must be important and perhaps the party system is progressing along farther than I have heard. Unlikely.

In truth, many of these "activists" may just be an individual who has sympathies for the party, may have hosted a Moscow party leader when the leader visited the region, or perhaps the party simply received votes in the region or a Duma deputy comes from that area. An individual or a Duma deputy from the region does not a regional party organization make.

Having heard the "89 regions" story echoed unanimously by every visiting official, we decided to ask a delegation of visiting mayors from throughout Russia what was the party activity in their regions like? Which parties were the most active? Which parties had offices and competed for regional and local elections? To a person, each mayor responded that in his or her region party activity was not significant. There were a few activists who followed party activities, but most elected officials were non-partisan and the parties did not have regional or local headquarters. They did say, however, that this might improve somewhat as elections approach. While certainly not a scientific sampling, it was remarkable that eight mayors from all over Russia were unanimous in their answer. This leads one to view party regional claims skeptically.

Another barometer of regional party organization comes from looking at who did well in the district races for the 1995 Duma election. The highest number of regional deputies were elected as non-partisans. 77 independent candidates were elected. Second, came the Communists with 58. A distant third was the Agrarian Party with 20 district seats. Yabloko gained 14, mostly because they were prominent politicians, and Our Home gained 10. The LDPR only won one district race. (However the LDPR has won a governorship in Pskov.) Such numbers do not suggest strong regional organization beyond the Communists and perhaps the Agrarians.

Has progress been made since 1995? In most of the subsequent regional elections, the parties threw their support behind gubernatorial candidates, but more often than not, they were backing an independent candidate with a somewhat similar ideological background, and not a party leader that they had recruited from the region. Such candidates welcomed additional support from the national-based organizations, but still, these candidates did not necessarily share loyalty with the parties who supported them.

The next big step for the parties to become a normal part of a party system is to establish themselves throughout the country with a broad-based membership and a clearly recognizable regional presence. True, regional supporters come from all over Russia to attend national party congresses, but when these delegates go back to their regions, are they forgotten by those in the Duma and the national offices? Are their needs and requirements for party-building, membership and candidate recruitment, and training met? We suspect no.

The Communists clearly are years ahead of the other parties on regional organization, but they began with an established system that they subsequently adapted to their needs. However, although their regional organization is the strongest, with their aging membership base, the Communists need to be concerned about demographics and recruiting new members. Our Home is Russia also has a strong presence in the regions, but that presence is among the elite and those governors who owe a great deal to Yeltsin. Our Home’s popularity among the ordinary people is limited and few join Our Home as members. With Chernomyrdin’s recent departure from government, the party is losing many of its high-level supporters in the regions while not having anything to offer the ordinary citizens who for the most part have been hurt by the economic transition. Our Home faces serious challenges in establishing itself as a regional party. Yabloko is disorganized. It is well-positioned to portray itself in the regions as the non-corrupt, forward-thinking, alternative to the current transition. The appeal might sell throughout the country. The problem is organization. Yabloko has only recently established its central office and Yabloko sympathizers in the regions are not adequately assisted. The party needs to establish better organization and communications with regions where Yabloko is likely to do well. Regional Yabloko sympathizers should be able to find a helpful local Yabloko branch where they can get information and encouragement to become involved. LDPR faces similar challenges to Yabloko; however, LDPR, with better funding by many accounts has a stronger presence that Yabloko in more regions.

The Moscow-centricity of these parties could lead to a potential organization of a regional party from the ground up that would take on Moscow-based parties. A "throw the bums out, regardless of ideology," campaign might emerge. Is such an organization likely to occur? Yes, but that organization is more likely to be a campaign organization rather than a true party organization. A movement around Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed is already forming. Such a movement would need a strong leader to unite regional organizations — Lebed is the strongest leader of the regions. However, Lebed as a leader inspires backing for Lebed himself, not necessarily a new Lebed-led party. Although Lebed already claims to be supported by a party, the Russian People’s Republican Party (RNRP), that organization will merely be Lebed campaign supporters and not a group of individuals seeking to create a new party that would last beyond the political career of Alexander Lebed.

In many ways this impending movement will be like Ross Perot’s United We Stand America movement in 1992, where the Texan swept from the regions to assault the "inside-the-beltway" crowd. The message reverberated, and may have caught on had he won; but with his political success failing, his following and his new party, the Reform Party, also floundered.

Regional party-building is incredibly important for establishing a stable party system in Russia. More than any other aspect in establishing a functioning party-system, this will take time. To encourage regional party development, stability and regular expected elections must occur.

 

C. Parties in Government

One of the major roles of a political party is to aggregate groups of individuals in government and to help them form voting blocs to accomplish governing tasks. Similarly-minded individuals join together increasing the likelihood of passing bills. As a positive externality, the public can easily identify which party is responsible for government policy and legislation and can reward or punish that party as it sees fit. In Russia today, parties exist in clearly defined factions in the Russian Duma, but the presidency remains above the nascent party system, which hinders its development.

What percentage of those elected affiliate themselves with a political party?

In the United States, every president since George Washington has been elected from a political party. Washington warned of the dangers of political parties in his farewell address, but parties had already developed underneath him within his very own cabinet. Although Washington thought poorly of political factions, they have proven beneficial to the United States in organizing debates and nominating processes, and in identifying an individual candidate or legislator as a member of the faction.

Russia’s first directly elected President seems to have taken his cue from America’s first President and has never joined a political party beyond the Communist Party he left at the end of the Soviet era. Because of his decision to remain above partisan politics, political party development in Russia has remained stunted. If the highest office in the land is above parties, how can any parties develop? People are forced to support Yeltsin as an individual, not as a party leader. They also cannot directly punish the President short of not reelecting him. In the United States, a president can be punished in by-elections when his party runs for Congress. While this non-partisanship may make political sense for Yeltsin, whose approval ratings are in the single digits, his unwillingness to use some of his political capital to create a party that supports him and can possibly outlive his tenure has hindered the development of a stable political party system.

As mentioned before, there is a pro-government party, headed by former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who was faced with the unpleasant task of defending the President and his policies without having the benefit of the President’s support. Yeltsin never directly backed Our Home is Russia because he wanted to be able to distance himself from the movement should it fail. He even went so far as to undermine any potential success a week before the 1995 Duma election saying he was not sure he would vote for Our Home, even though it supported his policies. Yeltsin welcomed Our Home’s support when it was useful, such as during the presidential campaign, and distanced himself from the organization when it fared poorly such as after its dismal showing in the December 1995 election. While clearly, with Yeltsin’s political record, the movement was never going to gain a majority of support, it would have fared much better in its electoral fortunes had Yeltsin come out and actively campaigned for the party.

Even Viktor Chernomyrdin, the head of Our Home, was not a very engaged party-builder. Although elected in the first position on the party list, Chernomyrdin was more concerned with his role as Prime Minister than as a party leader. Most of the party-building was left to executive committee director Vladimir Babichev and the Duma members with only moderate results.

Other candidates for the Presidency in 1996 were party leaders. Zyuganov, Yavlinsky, and Zhirinovsky all ran for the Presidency as party leaders. At this point it is undetermined whether they would have stepped down as party head while serving as president, trying to keep the position above politics, or whether they would have remained as the head of the party and country. As the next election approaches, of the two frontrunners, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed, neither has an established political party backing them. Lebed’s party is more of a campaign organization and a movement called Unity is just getting off the ground to jump on a Luzhkov bandwagon. Party leaders Zyuganov, Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky, and even Chernomyrdin will all run, but their chances two years out look less promising than in 1996.

With a non-partisan President, parties have not yet reached the higher echelons of the executive branch and remain strongest in the legislative branch. The 250 members elected from party-list seating ensure that at least half of the Duma will be partisan. They also ensure that parties within Russian society will be formed, organized, and compete for those seats. More than anything else in Russian society, the election law that guarantees those 250 party-list seats guarantees the continued formation and development of Russian political parties. This is why threats by the Yeltsin Administration to unilaterally change the election process for the Duma to all single-mandate seats is a direct threat to Russian political party development.

Of the 250 district seats, significant political parties only won 112 seats or 45% of the single mandate races, demonstrating the weakness of parties in the regions. ₄₄ However, with a total of at least 362 deputies (250+112) with ties to political parties, it is clear hat the Duma is and will remain the branch of the Russian government most associated with political parties until a party head is elected president.

We believe parties are important to a successful modern democracy and therefore the less individuals are elected on their own accord without party affiliation, the better it is for Russia.

To what extent are leadership and other positions within the legislature determined by political affiliations?

The Duma is where party identification is strongest. The four parties that gained list seats all officially registered as political factions within the Duma (one needs 35 seats to register as a faction). In addition, the Communists lent some of their extra deputies to the 20 Agrarian Party members and to other like-minded individuals to allow both the Agrarian and People’s Power factions to officially register. Finally, a group of independent district-elected deputies concluded it would be more beneficial being affiliated with a faction in the Duma so they formed the Russia’s Regions faction, a loose group of individuals with no party to back them.

With seven factions in the Duma, the major factions went about assigning leadership positions. This negotiation took place among the factions after much wrangling. The Communists, by far the greatest winners in the 1995 elections, were the logical choice for Speaker of the Duma, but other factions challenged for it, and when Yabloko refused to endorse an Our Home candidate, Communist Gennady Seleznev became Speaker. To the surprise of some, Seleznev maintained his Communist Party affiliation. The previous speaker, Ivan Rybkin of the Agrarian Party, had annulled his party membership to assume the post of Speaker. Izvestiya claimed the new speaker would not be an independent voice, but a mouthpiece of the CP-RF. ₄₅ In reality, while backing the Communist agenda, Seleznev has shown some independence from Communist Party positions, most notably supporting Sergei Kiriyenko’s Prime Minister nomination.

After the speaker issue was decided, other positions were negotiated completely along partisan lines. Parties let the others know their strong preferences based on who had served as committee chair before, who had specific interests, or whose professional background fit a committee leadership assignment. Thus, for instance, Vladimir Lukin of Yabloko, who had served as Ambassador to the U.S. and was a former committee head, became Chairman of the International Relations Committee, while the late General Lev Rokhlin of Our Home, a former military leader, headed the Defense Committee, and Alexander Mitrofanov of the LDPR, who was a leading LDPR international relations expert, became head of the Geopolitics Committee. Some committee leadership assignments went smoothly and some were contentious; however, they were all assigned according to faction, as were the rest of the committee seats. This helped to enforce faction loyalty within the Duma.

A number of disputes have occurred over what happens to the party’s committee assignment when individuals leave the party or leave the Duma to join the government. For instance, General Lev Rokhlin grew frustrated with Our Home is Russia and left the faction in the Summer of 1997. As a result, Our Home is Russia sought to replace him as committee chair arguing that the Chair was given to the faction, which assigned it to the individual. Rokhlin maintained he was the Chair and his faction did not matter. In the end, through a compromise with the seven other Duma factions, NDR was allowed to keep the chairmanship and replace Rokhlin with NDR deputy Roman Popkovich. A similar situation occurred for Yabloko when Budget Committee Chairman Mikhail Zadornov left to join the government as Finance Minister. In vacating the seat, did the seat go to the Deputy Chairman or was Yabloko allowed to fill the position with another member? In the same compromise deal as the Rokhlin case, Yabloko forfeited the Budget Committee Chairmanship to Russia’s Regions deputy and Budget Committee member Alexander Zhukov, and in exchange, Yabloko deputy Boris Misnik became head of the Committee on the Far North, replacing Russian Regions member Vladimir Goman, who had been appointed to the cabinet. ₄₆ In this instance, Yabloko did not keep the specific committee, but it kept the same number of committee chairmen. Therefore, one can see that Duma committee assignments are negotiated between factions and rely more on party affiliation than individuals. However, holding a committee chairmanship does not guarantee a replacement chairman from the same party.

Another improvement in party loyalty witnessed in this legislature over the 1993 Duma is that for the first two and a half years of its existence, the same seven factions have existed within the Duma. Sizes may have shifted slightly, but unlike in 1993 when new factions were registered and old factions fell beneath the 35 seat requirement and therefore were unregistered, the number of factions in this Duma has remained constant. Why? Likely, each of the parties elected to the Duma on list votes had clearly defined broad ideological bases and for the most part were legitimate developing parties.

To what extent do legislators vote along party lines?

Another indication of the strength of parties in the legislature is their party votes and how often members vote on party lines and how often they break ranks and vote against their party. In our interviews with Duma members, all of the factions we met distinguished between types of votes cast. Each faction allowed freedom for some votes that were not central for party causes, but on more important votes the party would impose discipline that all members had to vote for the party stance. In this Duma, all of the parties have reasonably strong party discipline. In the four months between February and June, 1998, the LDPR voted together 88.5% of the time; the Communists 84%, Yabloko 80.3% and Our Home 75.4%. The party factions voted together just slightly more often than the other three factions who were not backed by a unified party: Agrarians ₄₇ 74.9%; People’s Power 74.5%, and Russia’s Regions 70.2%. ₄₈ In comparison, Democrats and Republicans in the United States’ House of Representatives voted together 80 and 87 percent of the time, respectively, in 1996. ₄₉ The only major pubic exception to party discipline voting this year has been the nomination vote of Sergei Kiriyenko, where in a closed vote, a number of Communist deputies including the speaker went against their party’s wishes and voted for the new Prime Minister.

 

D. Conclusion: The Status of Parties in Russia

No successful democracy in the world today functions without some kind of political party system. Thus far, the development of a functioning political party system in Russia has been a slow process and a disappointment to many. Progress has been made in a number of areas: some organizations have moved beyond parties as personality-based campaign organizations; the factions within the Duma have remained constant since the 1994 Duma elections; and parties have national headquarters and understand that to succeed they must expand into the regions, where they remain weak. Yet a number of reasons exist why Russia’s political parties have not progressed to the level they should have.

First, after 70 years of "party rule," Russians are understandably skeptical of political parties. Second, the President’s actions have actively undermined the development of a political party system. By choosing to remain above parties and rejecting any party affiliation, President Yeltsin has promoted the concept that parties and party development are an afterthought in Russia’s democratic development. Yeltsin accepts the assistance of like-minded parties when it is politically convenient but distances himself from them when they might hurt his reputation. Because of his lack of affiliation, no party is the true party of the government, and Yeltsin cannot be held accountable to the people short of a general election.

Third, for political reasons, Yeltsin in the past has attempted to limit the development of parties by seeking to abolish the party-list system that elects half of the Duma seats. The party-list system allows parties clearing a 5% hurdle to enter the Duma. In 1995, only four parties did so, and over half of the Duma seats were won by parties in opposition to the Yeltsin Administration. Having the list system ensures that parties will exist in some part of Russian society. In 1998, Yeltsin renewed his call to change the election law. In order to have better control of the Duma, Yeltsin advocates having the entire chamber elected from regional districts, similar to the system used in the United States House of Representatives. With more control over local leaders, Yeltsin believes he can influence who wins these Duma seats. (In reality, organized crime would likely buy many of the seats.) If Yeltsin succeeds in abolishing the party-list system, he will destroy the only arena in Russian society where parties currently exist, and given the realities in the Russian regions would not minimize a major source of opposition. Such a strategy is politically disadvantageous for Yeltsin, but even more than that, it is damaging for Russian democracy, which needs a functioning party system to allow people to express their views to the government.

Thus it is clear that the most serious threat to Russian political parties comes from the executive branch and its attempts to change the election law. Party building is a long, slow process and given the negative connotations that parties have in Russia, it will take time for Russians to gain party members and loyalties. In order for the progress made over the last two and a half years to continue, a stable system without changing election laws must remain.

The 1999 Duma election will be a crucial step in the fate of the Russian political parties. First, the election law regarding the 5% hurdle must remain the same. Second, stricter standards must be enforced regarding the registration of parties so that the debacle of 43 proto-parties does not again appear on the ballot, thereby diluting the true parties and their attempts to gain legitimate candidates and votes. And third, the parties that currently exist in the Duma and successfully clear the 5% hurdle in 1999 will have found success in two (or more) consecutive elections, and their existence over those years will do much to institutionalize them as legitimate parties. Others will see these organizations as legitimate and seek to join them as opposed to creating their own movements to challenge them. While new parties will certainly emerge in Russia, the continued electoral success of the current parties will hasten the establishment of a political party system with representation not only in the Duma in Moscow but throughout the country.

 

 

Chapter Three: Western Assistance to Russian Political Democratization

Introduction

For the past four years, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project at Harvard has worked directly with the leaders of the major Russian political parties to assist them in their efforts to build a stable, sustainable political party system in Russia. We were hardly alone. A number of groups from a variety of backgrounds have worked on the Russian political party-building issue. These groups come from Europe and America; they are government-sponsored and private enterprises; they cover the political perspective from conservative to liberal; and they all share the same desire of helping Russian political parties develop.

Furthermore, party-building is just one activity of these Western "democracy promoters." Western organizations have helped to strengthen labor unions, encourage a responsible Russian press, bolster an independent judicial branch, promote Russian civil society, and create grassroots organizations — all activities that are needed in a functioning democracy.

In keeping with the rest of this report, this chapter will again focus on issues of political democracy including elections, political parties, and legislating.

Not surprisingly, our Project, as an active player in the Russian political scene, concludes that there is a role for the West to play in the promotion of political democracy in Russia. While mistakes have been made and some activities have been more effective than others, we believe that on the whole, the assistance provided to the political parties, election commissions, and Duma have been well-intended and effective most of the time. Russian politicians are better off in 1998 because of their exposure to Western technical assistance. True, Russian political experiences differ greatly from any Western experience because of culture, history, and current situations. Exposure to Western ideas cannot be haphazardly applied to the Russian situation. Still, a better understanding of a variety of Western experiences in elections, parties, and legislating has proven beneficial as a comparative index for Russians who are making decisions about the future of their political system.

In this chapter, drawing on our four years of experience of working with Russian politics, we evaluate what type of Western political assistance was provided by our program and others, how useful that assistance was, and what can be done over the next two years to make that assistance more effective.

 

D. What Western political development assistance was provided?

Western political democratization assistance to Russia over the last four years largely fell into one of three categories: political party-building assistance, election organization assistance, and legislative assistance. We begin our investigation of Western assistance by describing what type of assistance was provided by whom.

Party-Building Assistance:

Assistance to the fledgling Russian political parties was one of the most active aspects of Western technical assistance. As was stated in the political party chapter, Russian political parties, with the exception of the Communists, are in a developmental stage. Through a variety of practices, Western organizations sought to help strengthen Russian political party development, with the goal of helping to create a stable set of political parties which would exist from election to election and would represent the interests of the Russian people to the Russian government.

The strategies to achieve this goal varied from organization to organization. We will begin with our SDI Project. Being a smaller project with excellent contacts among the Russian leadership, but without an office on the ground in Moscow, SDI’s Party-Building Program focused on working with the leaders of the various political parties and creating programs to study the American party and election system for the Russian political decision-makers. The majority of our activities were based in Boston, New Hampshire, and Washington, DC, with an emphasis on very small groups of individuals meeting with their American counterparts to discuss issues of parties and elections. Programs on the SDI Party-Building Program would last a week and would involve many on-site visits to New Hampshire during the presidential primaries and to local party-offices or fundraisers. To make the program as useful as possible, attendees were asked to submit a list of 15 questions one month before the program so that the program could be crafted to meet the party’s specific interests. A maximum of four individuals were allowed on any given program.

Who was selected? Using our contacts within Russia, we would ask the leadership of the political parties to identify individuals they thought would most benefit from a week’s program in the United States. We asked them to send people at their "learning moment," those who would gain most from observing a different political system, would understand what they were seeing, and would be able to use any information gained on the trip to help the party develop.

Our program brought over party members from Yabloko, Our Home is Russia, Russia’s Democratic Choice, the Democratic Party of Russia, the Rybkin bloc, and from the Yeltsin and Yavlinsky presidential campaigns.

The SDI program was unique among the other programs assisting Russian party-building in that we also maintained contact with parties that were less America-friendly. With our mandate from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to help promote the development of a political party-system in Russia, we met, maintained contact with, and provided information to members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party. Our program was the only Western program to maintain such relations.

In addition to the mainstay of the Political Party-Building Program, which brought party leaders to the U.S. to study political party developments, SDI also worked with the Russian parties in a number of smaller ways. From its pool of Western experts, SDI provided the Moscow School of Political Studies, a political training center in Moscow run by Russians for young Russian leaders, a number of speakers for their programs. We also organized lectures on political parties at the Kennedy School’s Executive Program for members of the Russian State Duma. Additionally, we distributed our Political Party-Building and Campaigning Handbook, a summary of Western political techniques edited and translated specifically for the benefit of a Russian political parties, to all major groups competing for the 1995 Duma election.

In addition to SDI’s activities in political party-building, two major U.S. organizations worked directly with the political parties in Russia. The Democratic Party-sponsored National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Republican Party-sponsored International Republican Institute (IRI) both worked extensively with the Russian political parties. Where SDI was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, NDI and IRI were funded largely by the U.S. government through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Both NDI and IRI are based in Washington, DC and maintain offices and staffs in Russia. Earlier in the decade, they had offices in a number of Russian cities, but now both have offices in Moscow and travel to the Russian regions for regional work. The Russian staffs coordinate with Russian program officers based in Washington, DC.

NDI and IRI’s work is similar to SDI’s activities in that they share the goal of helping to promote the development of Russian political parties by exposing the parties to Western expertise and techniques. Having direct contacts with the U.S. parties, NDI and IRI have a wealth of information which has been translated and provided to the Russian parties. Although both programs have brought party members to the U.S. in the past, and NDI continues to conduct some program visits, much of their activities are based on the ground with training sessions in Russia. NDI and IRI provide a number of training seminars for a variety of levels of party members in both Moscow and in the regions. Often they work with the cadre level of the party. They use both Western experts who fly into Russia for sessions, and increasingly Russian graduates of their programs train other Russians. With limited funding, one of the goals of their programs is to set up self-sufficient programs, so that when the American groups eventually withdraw, party-building activities will continue under Russian guidance. Issues such as party membership, working with volunteers, creating a party image, selling the party, and party organization are all covered in the NDI/IRI party-building activities. NDI and IRI differ from SDI in that they work almost exclusively with the pro-Western organizations of Yabloko, Our Home is Russia, and Russia’s Democratic Choice.

Similar to the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties’ activities in Russia through NDI and IRI, a number of European parties also conduct party-building activities in Russia. Particularly active are the German Stiftungen (foundations). The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (Christian Democrats), the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Social Democrats), and the Friedrich Nauman Stiftung (Free Democrats) all have offices in Moscow and take part in some party-building activities. These activities include training seminars and trips to Germany to study party activities in the German setting. Unlike the American groups, however, the Stiftungen pick a party of a similar ideological outlook and concentrate their efforts to assist that party. Therefore, the Adenauer Stiftung works with Our Home is Russia, and the Ebert Stiftung works with Yabloko. The Nauman Stiftung has also focused its work with Yabloko stressing a common interest in liberalism and a social safety net.

Election Conduct Assistance:

In addition to assisting with the creation of a stable Russian political party system, Western political democratization assistance efforts have also focused on helping Russia prepare to run its elections. Recognizing that elections are one key part of any functioning democratic system, and that conducting free and fair national elections is a major task, Western groups marshaled efforts to assist Russia in preparing to organize and conduct its elections with the goal that the elections would run smoothly, freely, and fairly and that they would meet Western standards.

The Western group primarily tasked with this job was the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). IFES is a U.S. government-funded organization dedicated to helping transition countries run elections. IFES is based in Washington, DC and has an office in Moscow. As opposed to working with the political parties, IFES’s main point of contact is Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC). IFES assisted the CEC in setting up Russia’s elections of 1995, 1996, and beyond by providing experts to review election laws as they were being adopted, and by helping to set timelines for the elections. IFES also translated Russian election materials into English and assisted the CEC in voter education about the election. A second international group similar to IFES has emerged in Sweden called IDEA, the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, but this group was formed in 1995 and did not participate in the 1995 or 1996 Russian elections. However, in 1996 and 1997 IDEA has conducted meetings with members of the CEC to discuss areas for cooperation and exchange of information. IDEA agreed to translate many of its publications into Russian so that the CEC could disseminate the information.

One way to ensure that elections are conducted in a free and fair manner is to have election observers, both international and domestic, monitor voting and vote-counting. Western organizations provided assistance in both. Domestically, groups such as NDI and the conservative Washington-based Krieble Foundation assisted the parties in training their volunteers on how to observe voting and vote-counting procedures based on international experience by conducting training sessions and distributing materials. Additionally, along with government-sponsored OSCE teams, both NDI and IRI had international observer teams come to Russia to observe the election and report on the freedom and fairness of the voting and vote counting.

Legislative Assistance:

A final area of Western political democratization assistance has been aimed at working with the Russian Parliament, particularly the Russian State Duma. Recognizing that a functioning democracy requires a division of power among branches of government, and seeing that Russia traditionally has been ruled by a strong executive, a number of Western programs have been developed to assist the Russian Duma by exposing Russian Duma members to a variety of Western experiences. These activities are coordinated through the Duma’s Interparliamentary Relations Department. The goals of such program are to assist in facilitating legislative procedure in the Duma and to expose Duma members to legislative processes in the West by working with their Western counterparts.

One of the largest programs of its kind, takes place annually at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Over the past four years, the U.S.-Russian National Security Project at Kennedy School of Government has conducted the Executive Program for Members of the Russian State Duma in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These two-week programs bring over members of every Russian political faction in the Duma to study the American legislative and political process. Participants study issues from how to set up a Congressional office, to elections, to agricultural and health issues. Current and former Congressmen, professors, and government officials from all over the country come to meet and speak with the participating Duma members. The program is sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York and is based on the Kennedy School’s Executive Program for New Members of Congress. Thus far, over 100 Duma members representing all Duma factions have participated in this program.

The same group conducts an offshoot of this Kennedy School program in Moscow for members of the Duma staff, called the Executive Program for Senior Staff of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. This program brings U.S. Congressional staffers to Moscow to exchange ideas about policy issues and running legislative offices.

Other Western groups also conduct similar legislative exchange programs. The Aspen Institute of Washington, DC holds a number of retreats each year for Duma members, members of Congress, and senior political figures to discuss important issues affecting U.S.-Russian relations. Aspen’s Congressional Program headed by Dick Clark is a nonpartisan educational program designed to foster leadership on public policy issues among members of the U.S. Congress. Since its inception in 1985, the Program has focused primarily on foreign policy. For nearly a decade activities have focused on the new nations of the former Soviet Union in addition to Eastern Europe, Indochina, and southern Africa. In 1996, U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine, multilateral diplomacy, and cooperative security were main topics of discussion.

The Congressional Program held a number of major conferences during 1996 and 1997. One, in St. Petersburg, addressed current issues in the former Soviet Union, bringing together legislators from those countries with members of Congress, as well as Western scholars and experts. In addition, the Program convened a dialogue between senior legislators of the Russian Duma and the U.S. Congress. Funding for these events is provided entirely by philanthropic foundations. In 1996, the foundation supporters were the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) has also set up direct programs of cooperation and exchange between the Russian State Duma and the U.S. Congress, where Duma members visit the Congress and Congressmen visit the Duma to exchange ideas. European parliaments, especially the Bundestag and the British House of Parliament, conduct similar exchanges.

 

B. How much coordination exists between Western political development programs? Where were the programs complementary and where did they overlap?

With so many Western groups working on Russian political democratization issues, how much coordination occurred between these groups? Clearly the promotion of Russian democratization is a mammoth task, and the more the programs are aware of each other’s activities, the more effective the assistance provided will be with less overlap and more building on others’ previous work. SDI believes that more coordination must occur between Western democratization groups, especially between the European and American groups. Over the last four years, SDI has actively attempted to improve lines of communications between democratization groups.

Party-Building:

With so many programs working on party-building initiatives, there is a high risk of duplicating programs and covering similar issues if communications are not open between the groups. Luckily, on some levels good communications exist between the programs. NDI and IRI in Moscow keep in touch and are aware of each others’ activities. The best example of this coordination occurred where the two groups decided to work in different regional cities in order not to duplicate programs and waste precious resources.

Likewise, SDI’s coordination with NDI and IRI has improved exponentially over the last four years. From knowing little of each other’ programs, SDI now keeps in active touch with the Washington and Moscow offices of both programs. Whenever SDI brings party leaders to the U.S., we make sure when in Washington that we arrange meetings with both NDI and IRI. Similarly, when SDI members go to Moscow, IRI and NDI meet with us and help with technical support. IRI and SDI’s relationship has grown very close over the last year, and NDI and SDI have discussed holding joint Yabloko training programs in the U.S. in the future.

SDI’s Party-Building Program complements the NDI/IRI programs in another way as well. SDI’s programs are more geared toward working with the decision-makers in a party, while NDI/IRI’s programs, while dealing with the leaders, more often work with cadre-level participants from throughout Russia.

However, cooperation with the European foundations needs to be improved. On a high note, NDI and the Ebert Stiftung coordinated a joint Yabloko training program in November of 1997, where Yabloko members spent a week in Bonn studying German parties, and then a week in the U.S. on a NDI-sponsored program. Coordination programs such as these should become more commonplace, for they allow Russian party-builders to compare European party-building techniques to American party-building techniques, and apply the appropriate lessons of both to the Russian political scene. However, for the most part, European foundations operate separately and without much direct contact with the American groups. With such limited resources for such a large task, better coordination is needed.

SDI suggests two ways of better coordinating all party-building groups.

First, the parties themselves need to establish clear international training sections in their party-training divisions. Our Home is Russia has such an office; Yabloko is more disorganized. This group or individual needs to act as a clearing house between the parties and the Western organizations who are offering assistance. The training division must know what each Western organization can offer and match those programs with the needs of the party. This office should also let other Western groups know what program is being conducted by whom. For example, the party should tell other training groups that SDI is hosting four top-level Yabloko election strategists in February to observe the New Hampshire primary. This way, the Western programs will know who is doing what and what has been done. Under such a system, should NDI run a program on elections in May, they can contact SDI and ask who came, what was discussed, and what were the reactions. This will avoid duplication in programming.

Second, sometime in the Spring of 1999, in preparation for the 1999–2000 Russian election cycle, a small conference should be held in Moscow of all of the Western party-building groups, to discuss what their programs offer and with whom they work. The goal of the conference will be to establish personal relationships between the initiatives and to ensure open communications between all of the groups. Such a one-day conference could also invite the various parties to send the parties’ international program coordinator so he or she could meet all of the Western assistance coordinators and state what the party particularly needs at this point. The conference should have a non-biased moderator such as a Program Chair at a foundation, who can conduct the proceedings. Such a one-day affair could go a long way to establishing better coordination between all groups and guarantee that money spend on party-building is being used most effectively.

Election Conduct:

As for election conduct and cooperation with the CEC, IFES is the undisputed leader in this field — it does not really have a similar organization with which it must work. IFES also informs other related programs such and SDI, NDI, and IRI of its activities. Should IDEA become active in helping Russia, IFES and IDEA would have to coordinate their efforts.

As for election monitoring, should the parties deem this a high priority, the Western assistance groups should coordinate and divide or assign the task.

Legislative:

In the legislative assistance arena, there is an Office for Interparliamentary Relations in the Duma which is tasked with coordinating different international Duma exchanges. However, there is little contact between the American Duma programs. Partially this is because these programs have slightly different agendas. The Harvard Program is more focused on training, the Aspen Program is more focused on issue discussion, and the Congressional program is concerned with meetings between fellow legislators. Still, although the programs may differ in emphasis, a reporting of the activities of each program to the other would make each program stronger. If the programs knew who has attended which program, what issues were discussed, and the results of each program, they could adapt their agendas accordingly. Furthermore, the problem that exists in political party-building also exists in the legislative realm — European and American programs need to be better coordinated.

 

C. How effectively did Western organizations adapt their programs and material to Russian realities?

Every political system is different, and one cannot simply apply the rules of one political system to another. Therefore in the Russian case, any assistance provided must be adapted to make the program as useful as possible, given the realities of the Russian system. This is a learning process and with each program run, self-evaluations and frank discussions with the Russian participants are required to make each successive program better and more useful.

For our part, SDI did a number of things to make our programs as useful as possible for Russian participants. First, we set expectations and required work beforehand. In organizing the trips, we explained exactly what we would and would not do. We also required participants to think about the program ahead of time and solicited their advice on issues to be discussed. Such clear cut requirements reduced what one might call the "tourist trade." Second, we only brought over small groups on our programs. Smaller numbers means more in-depth discussions. A Western participant is much more likely to hold frank discussions with one, two, or three people, than if he is confronted by 10 people walking into his office. Then such meetings become "meet-and-greets" and discussion is left at the cursory level. SDI learned this the hard way. Third, any useful material distributed in our program was in Russian and well translated. English materials are of little use to Russian parties, and poorly translated materials are also of no use. Fourth, on more substantial material distributed in Russia, we had Russians who know the Russian political system read the material and comment on what is useful and what is not. Irrelevant Western anecdotes or descriptions serve no purpose. Describing the intricacies of a direct mail campaign to raise money for a candidate in Russia is pointless because such mail lists do not exist for candidates, and Russians are unlikely to mail checks to candidates. Finally, as stated above, we asked our participants at the end of our programs to evaluate each event to make sure that the program we organized was useful. We also asked for suggestions for improving the program.

Finally, there is a cultural issue that must be addressed. Our program or any similar program should not seek to "teach" Russians the way to build parties or organize campaigns. The U.S. way is one of many, and aspects of our political system not only would not work in Russia, but are fundamentally flawed. Instead, our program stresses exchanges between the political professionals of two countries, which encourages thoughtful exchanges and discussions of common challenges. For instance, on one occasion, when taking a Russian political party leader to speak about fundraising issues for campaigns, the Russian declared en route that, "This meeting will not be useful, you have rules you have to follow; you can only raise $1,000 per election per person, while we conduct one meeting and are given a suitcase full of cash. We are too different." To the Russian’s surprise, he found the meeting one of the most useful of the trip. Instead of speaking about how the fundraising systems differ, the two spoke about obligations that candidates have to those who give money to a campaign. Although the systems were different, some of the issues faced by candidates in both systems were in fact similar. Using the real experiences of both Russian and American practitioners, not textbook or academic issues, helps to make our programs beneficial.

SDI frequently asks during visits of Russian political party members how the Western training programs are that they attend in Russia? Their response varies. They all say that the programs are well-intentioned and beneficial, but they also make suggestions on how to make them more effective. For example, they suggest that the programs should not be held in Moscow itself. SDI’s programs here in the U.S. have a luxury that the Russian-based programs do not — the undivided attention of our participants. Those participants who join us on our programs concentrate on party-building for an entire week. Those participating in seminars in Moscow or other Russian cities are only a cell phone call away from another priority. Participants come late, or at times not at all, or may be called away. The advantage of our program is the undivided attention. The advantages of the Russian-based programs are that more people can participate and going to a program does not require a week away from work. One way suggested to focus members in Russian environments is to hold the meetings out of town so it is more difficult to go back into town once a participant arrives. Getting out of the city allows for more focus.

Second, party officials indicate that they only want to be trained with their own party members. Although they may hold views similar to those of other parties, such parties are their competition and they do not want to "give away any secrets" in seminars. For the last few years, both NDI and IRI have only trained party officials with other party members. European groups also tend to train similarly-minded parties, so this is not so much of an issue.

The same cultural rules apply for Russian-based programs as our SDI programs. Sensitivity to cultural differences, well-translated materials, and well-prepared speakers are needed. Having looked at IRI’s and NDI’s materials developed for their seminars, SDI was impressed by the amount of preparation that went into them. On the other hand, in 1995, SDI was shown an NDI election observation handbook with excellent information, but it was in English and the election was less than a month and a half away. Clearly, this material should have been prepared in Russian for training observers earlier. SDI also found an affronting piece of literature on election observation produced by the conservative Krieble Foundation subtitled, "How the Krieble Foundation Saved Russia." Such material is culturally insensitive and hurts all Western programs trying to work with Russians on political democratization.

Our advice of soliciting feedback from participants, flexible programs that are adapted to changing realities, clear expectations, good translations, and having Russians who know the political scene read materials and help adapt them so they are more applicable to Russians applies to all Western political democratization assistance, from party-building, to election conduct assistance, to legislative assistance. Thus far, Western programs have done their best to adapt their programs, but it is easy to stay with a formula once developed, even when it should be adjusted to the new realities present in a constantly changing Russia.

 

D. What (if any) are the results of specific Western Assistance efforts?

Which of the Western assistance programs were most effective? We have already mentioned the independent variable of what assistance was provided by different groups. We now turn to the results. Has progress been made in any particular area? Where has progress exceeded expectations and where has it failed to meet hopes? Again we divide the assistance into political party-building, election conduct, and legislative assistance.

Political Party-Building:

Political party organization/party-building:As is evident in the previous chapter, Russian political parties have not developed as far as had been expected at the start of the Russian transition. A number of reasons illustrated previously are responsible for this, including negative memories of political parties, frustration with parties in general, and Yeltsin’s refusal to join a political party.

In 1996, the U.S. General Accounting Office released a report evaluating the effectiveness of U.S. government political assistance to Russia and harshly criticized IRI and NDI for not having more to show for their efforts. "U.S.-funded political party development programs in Russia had not significantly strengthened reformist national political parties, either organizationally or in terms of increased membership or performance in elections," claimed the report. ₅₀ We join NDI and IRI in believing that the findings of the GAO report were too critical of Western party-building efforts. Building political parties in Russia is a decades-long endeavor, not something that occurs overnight or even over a couple of years. Additionally, political parties do not magically appear because leaders of the transition state have attended a few lectures on how to build a party. The task of party-building is a huge undertaking with many challenges including cultural limitations, election laws, personality issues, and political issues. Given the size of this activity, it is unfair to think that Western organizations, NDI, IRI, SDI, or the German Stiftungen can, through their efforts alone, create a stable party-building system. Our assistance matters at the margins, but then again, margins can be important.

What programs such as SDI and the others do is expose the leaders of the political parties to different Western concepts and issues of party-building. By observing Western European and American parties in action, Russian political leaders can take back ideas which they can try as they build their own parties. In Western programs, Russian party leaders may observe what they like and dislike about Western parties, copy what they find relevant, and ignore what is not useful. The Western groups can give material that can be useful in training members of their party. Programs such as SDI’s can allow leaders of a party to take a week off and to concentrate on what the party’s strategy should be for the next two years regarding political party development. They also provide international lessons learned, so party-builders do not have to act solely on trial and error experiences. The GAO report is mistaken to argue that Western assistance has made no difference in Russian party building. What Grigory Yavlinsky says in his March 1998 Foreign Affairsarticle of Russian democracy can be applied equally to the Russian political parties: the choice is Russia’s alone, but the West can play a role to help in steering us in the right direction. ₅₁

What the West has done is expose hundreds of young leaders from all levels of parties and all parts of Russia to Western party concepts and realties. Some of those individuals will go on to be leaders not only in their parties but in their country as well, and the lessons they have learned from the West will help them when making important decisions. The greatest sign of this party-building success is the emergence of Russian party-building teachers themselves. Russian graduates of Western programs, who have gone on to gain experience in Russian parties and elections, are now training their colleagues. For example, the Moscow School of Political Studies holds seminars for young leaders throughout Russia on issues such as party-building. Western organizations recognize that their money and time is limited, so the strongest legacy they can leave is qualified individuals who can continue their party-building efforts.

Political campaign strategy and organization (scheduling, spending, polling, media relations, campaign structure):A big part of political party activity revolves around elections. In addition to teaching pure party-building skills such as organization and writing platforms, Western organizations have also worked with political parties on how to conduct effective campaigns. While there is some discrepancy on how far the Russians have come in political party development, there is no doubt after campaigns for national and regional Dumas, the Presidency, and numerous governorships, that the Russians have learned how to run effective campaigns. Many of these techniques, for better or worse, have come from the West.

Prior to the 1996 Presidential campaign, SDI hosted members of the Yeltsin and Yavlinsky presidential campaign teams a number of times to observe the U.S. presidential election. Similar Russian observation was made during the 1994 Congressional elections. Russians from all political stripes came to see how U.S. elections were conducted. One look at the 1996 Yeltsin presidential campaign or the 1995 Zhirinovsky Duma campaign shows that the Russians got the message.

Interestingly, Russian elections, especially for president, are more like American elections than European elections. They are conducted largely on TV; they last over a long period of time; the people get to make a direct choice from the candidates; and image is important. This is why Russians prefer to study American elections and speak with American election consultants.

This is yet another reason for better coordination between European and Western party-building organizations. In many ways, the European parties are more similar to Russian parties than the American parties. European countries have multi-party systems and often proportional representation and clear membership rules and guidelines, while American parties are often merely election machines. Yet, Russian elections are more similar to the American system. A cooperative study of both systems, Europe for parties, and America for elections would be most beneficial to the Russians. NDI’s recent cooperation with the Ebert Foundation is a good step in this direction.

Success of trained individuals:Again, this is a difficult parameter to measure. True, one of the goals of Western assistance has been to assist political parties to win elections and to train individuals as they run in elections. But measuring the effectiveness of the Western programs is not as simple as just counting up which parties or individuals have participated in programs and how they did on election day. Certainly some parties and individuals who participated in the Western programs did well, such as the members of the Yeltsin campaign team, and some failed, such as Russia’s Democratic Choice. Some tried techniques learned in Western assistance programs and others did not. Although the success of parties or individuals who participated in Western programs is certainly something that can be considered when evaluating programs, it should not be the ultimate arbiter of a program’s success. There will be more elections in the future and the techniques learned on a program can be applied over years. What such programs are attempting to do is to give the Russian participant an understanding of how parties are built and campaigns are run in different societies, and through that exposure the participant will have a better understanding of options available to him in Russia.

Election Conduct:

Russian election law as written and adopted:The aforementioned GAO report praised IFES for its activities with the Russian Central Election Commission. It said "IFES has made several important contributions to improve Russia’s electoral administration structure, including contributing to passage of Russia’s Voting Rights Act in November 1994 and...legislation governing elections for the State Duma." ₅₂ Clearly IFES had the ear of the CEC and with IFES’s help, the CEC was able to conduct an election up to international standards that proved to be a watershed event answering a key question for Russian democracy: Could Russia conduct elections for its leaders? IFES’s effect was substantial. It commented on drafting the laws and its suggestions were often taken into account. It forewarned of potential issues that might be coming up in the future and helped the CEC prepare to conduct the elections. IFES’s praise from the GAO is well-deserved. As a testament to IFES’s professionalism, it is notable that the opposition parties made no fuss about Western influence on the election process despite IFES’s close relations with the CEC.

However, one must also recognize that IFES’s task of helping to write the election law and prepare the CEC for the upcoming elections was a much more concrete task than the assignment to assist Russia in building its parties. While a stable political party system may take decades to emerge, elections occur on a certain date and election commissions are either prepared or not prepared for that date. This is not to belittle the tremendous effort that IFES demonstrated in accomplishing its task; it is only to point out that Western party-builders faced a less concrete agenda in their operations.

Voter turnout:Russian voters turned out in record numbers to vote in their Duma and presidential elections. Their 70% turnout shamed the American 50% turnout for our best elections. Western organizations did provide some "get out the vote" material and suggestions to both the CEC and the parties. At the request of the Yeltsin campaign in the second round of the election, SDI drafted a memo describing what techniques American campaigns frequently use to get out the vote. However, despite some televised announcements and some strategizing by the political parties and presidential campaigns, Russians voted in such high numbers not because they were told to, but because they knew the votes were very important to the future of their country. As Michael McFaul describes the Presidential elections, "the 1996 vote was...Russia’s last `revolutionary’ election in which voters were asked to choose between two fundamentally different systems." ₅₃ In other words, people voted because who won mattered.

The procedure and thus the fairness of voting:One of IFES’s main tasks, beside advising on the election law, was to assist the CEC in its preparations for the elections. Nation-wide elections are a tremendous logistical feat which involve setting up polling sites, recruiting volunteers, providing enough ballots, maintaining voter lists, registering candidates and parties, distributing ballots, and accrediting volunteers and election observers, to name only some of the major tasks. A great deal of work went into the preparation for the elections with calendars and deadlines set in advance. As the election occurred, relatively few complaints were heard given the scale of the undertaking. The election procedure went off as planned and therefore was characterized as fair by both domestic and international observers. The smoothness of the election process was a testament to the CEC and therefore to IFES as well. The logistical feats were accomplished: enough ballots were available, polling locations were clear, polling stations were manned; lists were updated; and people who wanted to vote were allowed to do so in a free environment. The election was a success.

The procedure and thus the fairness of vote counting:The success of the election conduct procedure also applied to the vote counting procedure. With a few notable exceptions, like in Chechnya where 80% voted for Yeltsin in the Presidential campaign, votes were counted in a timely manner, ballots were not destroyed, and the correct results were reported at the local regional and national level. Some discrepancies did occur, such as in Tatarstan where a large percentage of the voters switched their votes to Yeltsin in the second round. But for the most part, all agreed the procedure of the vote counting was fair and the correct results were reported. Again, this is a credit to the Central Election Commission’s preparation and therefore IFES’s assistance.

Election monitoring:For the most part, polling sites were observed by members of the most organized political party, the Communists. The Communists trained their own observers and they were stationed throughout the country. This added legitimacy to the elections.

The Western assistance organizations were interested in making sure that the elections were carried out in a free and fair manner, and therefore there was interest in training the parties on election observation. Unfortunately, Western efforts in this area fell flat. The large and superb NDI handbook on election observation was not translated in time to be effective for the parties. A smaller book was translated, but still the pro-Western parties did not observe effectively due to their size. At least NDI’s material was useful, albeit late. The Krieble Foundation material was too culturally insensitive to be used effectively. With quotes like, "In well-developed democracies like the United States," or "Russians proved that they would not be slaves in August of 1991, when they took to the streets to protect democratic reforms against a military coup d’etat," or "Russia experienced an event similar to the signing of the Magna Carta in August 1991. Whether it will have an experience similar to the American example is up to you," ₅₄ useful material in the book is tarnished. Finally, there was talk of the West funding a parallel vote count to make sure that the election results reported were accurate. Again this effort was disorganized and did not occur soon enough to find funding. Luckily, the Communists were sufficiently organized without the help of Western organizations to man the polls with their volunteers.

A quick comment on Western observers for elections. While we realize that these observers are necessary to put the stamp of international approval on an elections, for the most part, these observers are of limited value. They spend a week in the country at most, thus missing some of the nuances of the election, and are too few to be able to give an accurate view of the nation-wide voting procedure. However, observers in the Presidential election reported that the election was free and fair. True, the 1996 Russian Presidential election was free and fair; however, the campaigning over the previous three months was grossly unfair. Western observers are a necessary part of transitional elections, but their opinions should be weighed carefully.

Writing in 1998, many of our contacts have expressed concern about the freedom and fairness of future elections. After observing election abuses in some regional elections, some are beginning to fear that future Duma and presidential elections will not be as fair as the 1995 and 1996 elections. "Tricks of the trade" have been learned and will be applied in future elections. Since this is emerging as a major concern, now is the time to begin preparing for future election observation. Material should be created now, and training seminars should be prepared so that the parties can train their people to observe. Such activities should be readily available to all parties, including the Communists. One of the few true success stories of the Russian transition over the last four years has been its relatively clean elections. If this success is not repeated in future elections, Russians may abandon all hope of a democratic society.

Legislative Assistance:

The legislative assistance provided by Western groups has differed among the three U.S. groups discussed. The Kennedy School Executive Program for Members of the State Duma is more of a training program on how to be a legislator and run a legislative office along with issue discussion, while the Aspen and Weldon programs are more issue discussions to promote better understanding between the legislators. European legislative programs are also issue-oriented. It is difficult to determine how legislative assistance has helped the Duma. Issue discussion groups have clearly opened better communications between the legislators and hopefully promoted better understanding. The Kennedy School Executive Program, however, is more difficult to analyze. As a result of the Duma and staff programs, have the participants become better legislators? From an unscientific observation of four years of Duma members participating in this program, SDI would say that on the whole, members of the Russian Duma are better legislators now than they were four years ago. There is a notable change in the demeanor of the participants in this program compared to the first programs, which were more adversarial and raucous. The Summer 1998 program in Cambridge, for example, saw thoughtful legislators from all parties not so interested in how to set up their offices, which they had been running since the 1995 elections, but in learning more about America and issues that affect both countries. This professionalism denotes a maturing of the Duma and therefore, perhaps, a success of these programs.

 

E. Conclusion

Based on the above discussion, we therefore conclude that Western political democratization assistance has made a difference to varying degrees in Russian democratization. In concrete tasks such as election law and election organization, one can observe the clear results of Western assistance. However, even in broader areas such as party-building or legislative process, where it is more difficult to measure the amount of difference exposure to Western parties and Western legislatures has made, we still believe the Western organizations have had an important role to play.

SDI is particularly partial to exposing Russians to Western experiences at their "learning moments." The skills learned will not always be directly transferable to Russia, but there are significant benefits to bringing Russians West. While it is certainly more economical to send one Westerner to train a group of party officials in Russia, we believe a visit to an American party or a campaign rally will last in the memory longer than a lecture by a visiting American expert. The key is to bring individuals who know enough to appreciate what they are seeing and who are senior enough to be able to follow up on ideas they develop while on Western assistance programs.

Two examples of this are pertinent, both during the New Hampshire primary. In October 1995, we took a group of centrist party representatives to Manchester, New Hampshire, to observe a presidential debate. We arrived at the debate site an hour early and found volunteers for candidate Alan Keyes putting up signs. The Russians asked if they could go speak with them. When they approached, they asked how much Mr. Keyes paid them to put up these signs? They volunteers responded that they were paid nothing, that they did this because they believed in Mr. Keyes’ message. This made quite an impression on the centrist parties representatives.

A second example occurred when members of the Yeltsin campaign team were visiting Manchester, New Hampshire, on primary day in February 1996. After a day of traveling around the state, and observing Pat Buchanan phone banks and Lamar Alexander speeches, the group ended up at the closing Dole rally. One could see in the expressions on the campaign team’s faces that a learning moment was occurring. These individuals, who were savvy by Russian election standards, were overwhelmed by the size and activity of the room, from the wall of media cameras, to the band, to the balloons, streamers, and buttons. One could see in their faces they were thinking how they would apply such lessons to the upcoming Yeltsin campaign.

We also believe better coordination is needed between party-building and Duma training programs, especially between European and American groups. Knowing who are the other players acting in the field and having direct contacts with those groups will enhance the quality of all the programs and ensure that scarce funds are not wasted in duplicative efforts.

Finally, we fundamentally disagree with conclusions that the time for Western technical assistance is over now that Russia has conducted its first major set of elections. Fears of future election fraud dictate that the parties prepare themselves to observe polling sites. The fact that the parties have not yet emerged to a satisfactory level means that more can be done. SDI is currently entertaining offers from Our Home is Russia to send over regional leaders for communications training, and Yabloko has requested that we bring over 20 leaders between the fall of 1998 and the 1999 Duma elections. In order for any program to be effective, the Russians must want to learn themselves and must be engaged. These requests show that the parties still see much more to be done and seek the benefits of exposure to Western experiences.

 

 

Conclusion

This report was written over the Summer of 1998 when many of the gains of the last four years of transition seemed to be in jeopardy. The collapse of the Russian economy in July and August of 1998 and the subsequent political changes of firing Yeltsin’s young Prime Minister, Sergei Kiriyenko, vividly demonstrate the challenge of writing anything about Russia and its ongoing revolution — the specifics of the political and economic situation change so rapidly that anything written is quickly overtaken by events. Nevertheless, in this report, we have attempted to outline the broad reasons why we believe that Russia is indeed on the right track toward establishing a democratic state. We recognize that setbacks will occur during this difficult transition period, and the events of Summer 1998 may prove to be the greatest challenge for Russia since the events of 1991. Still, in the face of these setbacks, both economic and political, we offer a number of conclusions on the status of Russian political democracy, that we believe demonstrate a positive trend in Russian democracy.

First, as we have stated throughout this monograph, Russia’s greatest victory in democratization is the victory of the democratic presumption. The Russian people have grown accustomed to and have accepted the fact that it is they who should choose their leaders through elections. Over the last four years, elections have taken place at all levels of Russian society and they will continue to be held in the future. Even in the midst of the crisis of Summer 1998, political adversaries were talking about resolving impasses through elections and not coups. The Administration threatened the Duma with early elections if they did not confirm Viktor Chernomyrdin as Prime Minister. The opposition leaders in the Duma, perhaps expecting to take advantage of frustration throughout the country, responded that they were prepared to face such elections. Talk also arose when Viktor Chernomyrdin was named as Yeltsin’s nominee for Prime Minister that Yeltsin might be preparing to step down and hand over the reins of power to Chernomyrdin, necessitating an early presidential election.

Although Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed warned in September 1998 that the country was in a revolutionary mood and protests occurred throughout the country, it remains unclear what opposition forces might attempt to conduct a coup. The military remains disorganized and has repeatedly said it will not get involved in politics. More likely the threat to the constitutional order comes from the Yeltsin Administration hinting it might disband the parliament and not conduct elections after dissolution. After the Duma rejected Chernomyrdin in the first vote, Administration officials began to suggest that perhaps elections would not be held within the required three months because the state did not have the budget for the elections or because parties had not registered with the CEC a year prior to a new ballot. Either scenario would be dangerous for Russian democratic development and illustrates that democracy in Russia still faces formidable hurdles.

Over the past four years, Russia has overcome significant challenges to hold its first free and fair elections at every level of Russian government. The current situation is certainly daunting, but when faced with daunting situations in the past, the country has ultimately moved forward toward democratization as opposed to backward. Russian citizens, although understandably discouraged by the economic depression, crime, and corruption in today’s Russia, still seek to retain their right to choose their leaders.

As far as future campaigns themselves are concerned, we agree with Michael McFaul that the 1996 Presidential election was the last of the valence issue elections, where the choice was Communism vs. democracy. Despite the woes of the Summer of 1998, we believe, not only that future elections will be held, but will be held between candidates running on platforms similar to those seen in any Western country: improving the economy, fighting crime, and improving health care and education. The candidates who compete will be from the left or right, but the risk of returning to the past versus moving forward was finally decided in 1996. This is a bold statement to make at the time of this writing, but we believe it to be true.

Another important challenge that Russia must face in its future elections is the transfer of power from those in power to opposition forces. As we have mentioned, we do not believe this would have occurred had Yeltsin lost in 1996, but we are also not convinced that the Communists and Gennady Zyuganov would have continued to conduct future elections. Therefore, with the change in the nature of Russian elections from issues of the future versus the past to issues of who can best help Russia move forward, there should be less risk of retribution for those currently in power or of someone coming to power and changing the rules of the game. With this decided, the next major watershed issue for Russian democracy is the election of an opposition leader to the Presidency. Be it Alexander Lebed, Yuri Luzhkov, Gennady Zyuganov, or Grigory Yavlinsky, someone not associated with the current Yeltsin Administration must become President for Russian democracy to succeed.

Likewise, as we can observe from the elections in Russia over the past four years, Russian campaigns — for better or worse — are becoming more Westernized. Tricks of the trade such as mass mailings, auto-pens, sound bites, and images created for TV are all being used more often. While this may be regrettable to some, these tactics themselves are not a threat to Russian democracy. What is dangerous is unfair campaigns and elections. Campaign and election fraud is growing more frequent in Russia. The Yeltsin campaign of 1996 which blatantly ignored spending limits and used the media to its advantage established a worrisome precedent that has been repeated by some regional governors in their reelection campaigns. In the Yeltsin situation, the issue was not deemed serious, because vote counting was mostly fair and no one doubted that Yeltsin won the election. The challenge will occur when someone changes vote counts to ensure that a candidate who would not win otherwise wins. This possible scenario could easily occur in 2000 if sufficient preparations for election monitoring are not made ahead of time.

The economic and political crisis of the Summer of 1998 also demonstrates the shortcomings of Russian political parties. The people’s frustration with the government is not being channeled into Russian political parties in order to "throw the bums out." Instead, the citizens are growing increasingly frustrated with a government which does not respond to their needs and apparently cannot be held accountable. In a healthy democracy, opposition political parties could offer alternatives to those in power. In Russia, the anger has turned increasingly to frustration that is not usefully channeled into the existing political system. The lack of legitimate political parties leaves people more likely to protest openly, to seek to take matters into their own hands, and perhaps, at worst, to join extremist political movements that advocate operating outside the existing rules of government and politics.

Undoubtedly, Russian political parties have developed less fully than most had hoped. An understandable distrust of political parties, the Yeltsin Administration remaining above partisan politics, and threats to change the election law have all hindered party development. However, no modern democracy exists without political parties, and a society without them risks disenfranchising the people.

In Russia today, seven years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Communists remain Russia’s only legitimate established political party. They have a variety of leaders, a broad platform, and an identifiable regional organization. The pro-government Our Home is Russia’s fate is too closely tied to Viktor Chernomyrdin. After his dismissal, governors left the party in droves; at the announcement of his re-nomination, the party was briefly rejuvenated. Still, the party lacks mass appeal and consists mostly of government-supporting regional officials. Yabloko has a clear agenda and a niche to fill in the Russian political landscape as a democratic opposition movement, yet the party lacks resources, and despite a wealth of talent underneath its leader, it is still closely associated with Yavlinsky. Likewise, the LDPR is still closely tied to the antics of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and lacks the additional leaders that Yabloko has; however, the LDPR has resources for its regional development that Yabloko lacks. Finally, new movements are likely to develop over the course of the next year to support Alexander Lebed and Yuri Luzhkov in their quests for the Russian presidency, yet these political groups will be campaign organizations first, not legitimate parties. However, the political success of one of these two could help transform these movements into more legitimate political parties.

The vast majority of the Russian people do not identify with any political party, even though they vote in high numbers. The only place in Russian society where parties actively exist is in the Duma. Still, the Duma is a good place for the parties to begin their broader development. The relative stability during the three years since the 1995 Duma election has allowed the parties to work on party development. All four parties that cleared the 5% barrier have offices in Moscow and concentrate on regional organization. In order for this important process of party-building to continue, stability is needed. Stability not only in Russian society, but especially in Russian election laws. The Russian parties face no greater threat today than the Yeltsin Administration altering the Russian Duma election law to prevent party-list voting.

For Russian democracy to succeed, the emerging Russian political parties must be allowed to develop so that the Russian people can have a means of influencing the government and identifying political alternatives.

Western assistance to Russia over the last seven years has often focused on the Russian economic transformation and not democratic institutions. However, building strong functioning democratic institutions in Russia is a task as daunting and as important as transforming a command economy into a market economy. Despite the challenges, numerous Western groups, including ours, have risen to the occasion by helping Russia with its elections, political parties, legislative activities, free media, trade unions, civil society, and numerous other issues important to a free society. We applaud those who have recognized that Russia’s transition to a stable, functioning democracy is the most important security issue in the late 20th Century.

We have focused in this report on the area we know best, political institution-building of elections, political parties, and legislative activities. We believe that these programs have made a difference in the establishment of Russian democracy. In political party-building, numerous Russian politicians have gained exposure to Western concepts of parties, elections, and campaigns through programs such as ours, NDI’s, IRI’s, and the European party foundations. While we personally believe the most effective party programs involve exposing key Russian party organizers at their learning moments to Western ideas by bringing them to the West to observe Western practices and meet with their Western counterparts, we also recognize the practicality of sending Western experts to Russia to assist with organization and training.

On elections, the West has proven invaluable to Russia as it has organized its first free and fair elections by assisting in the drafting of election laws. And finally, on legislative issues, numerous Western groups conduct exchanges and training with members of the Russian parliament, which allows greater understanding between the West and Russia’s legislative leaders.

In all of these instances, cultural sensitivity, well-organized programs, and well-translated materials are imperative.

As SDI has observed these different programs, we are struck by how much is being done and how little coordination takes place between similar organizations. Partially this is the fault of Russians who are not coordinating the Western assistance provided, and partially this is the fault of Western groups, who are not advising each other of their programs and their results. This must change. Resources in the field of Russian democratization are too scarce in every country to allow for any duplication or miscommunication. We propose a democratization summit in Moscow in the Spring of 1999 to address these issues.

Finally, if the crisis of Summer 1998 proves anything, it suggests that Russian democracy is a work in progress, and now is not the time to scale back Western assistance to build Russian democratic institutions. Much remains to be done. Free elections are under threat and Russian parties are not yet established. On a broader scale, the Russian media is less free than earlier this decade and Russia still lacks strong trade unions or the institutions of a civil society. The West has a role to play in Russia’s democratic transition, and turning away now, after coming so far, is a mistake.

Composing this in the midst of the Russian economic meltdown, it is tempting to write off the Russian transition to democracy as a failure. Russian oligarchs seem increasingly powerful; the Yeltsin Administration has hinted at changing the election law unilaterally, or even that Yeltsin might run for a third term; the Russian people do not associate themselves with political parties; and the government does not seem responsive to the needs of the Russian citizens.

We at SDI recognize that Russia’s transition has not been perfect, and we credit the Russian people with their patience as their world goes through such traumatic changes. However, we believe that Russia is indeed on the right track and is experiencing adolescent growing pains. Underneath the dissatisfaction, positive signs exist: elections have been held; people are voting; compromises are being reached between political rivals; and parties are slowly developing.

Russia still has a long way to go, but when speaking of the proverbial Russian democracy glass, SDI chooses to see it as half-full.

 

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Endnotes

Note 1: Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971) pp. 4–7. Back.

Note 2: Taken from McFaul’s "A Precarious Peace," in International Security, vol. 22, no. 3 (Winter 1997/98), pp. 14–16. Back.

Note 3: SDI has removed one of Freedom House’s political rights criteria as beyond the limited scope of our criteria, for the purposes of this report, for measuring Russian elections and their impact on Russian political development: "Do cultural, ethnic, religious, and any other minority groups have a reasonable self-determination, self-government, autonomy or participation through informal consensus in the decision making process?" Additionally, we have added a question about regional elections, and in keeping with Schumpeter’s requirements for democracy, we have added a question about political participation through voter turnout. We have also expanded the Freedom House questions on political parties into an entire section (Chapter Two) and have added the Freedom House question about endowing the parties, freely elected representatives with real power to the political party chapter. Back.

Note 4: V.O. Key’s distinctions are made in Political Parties and Pressure Groups (Crowell, 1952). For more information on the nature, classification, and definition of political parties see Paul Allen Beck’s Party Politics in America (Longman, 1997), John Aldrich’s Why Parties? (Chicago, 1995), and Richard Katz and Peter Mair’s "Changing Models of Party Organizations and Party Democracy; the Emergence of the Cartel Party," in Party Politics, 1:1, Jan. 1995, pp. 5–28. Back.

Note 5: Only one major recent exception exists: Andrei Klimentyev, a man with a criminal record, was elected mayor of Nizhnii Novgorod, and the election was subsequently annulled. Back.

Note 6: Fiona Hill, "In Search of Great Russia: Elites, Ideas, Power, the State, and the Pre-Revolutionary Past in the New Russia 1991–1996," dissertation in History, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, March 1998, p.454. Back.

Note 7: All of these figures are the dollar equivalent of rubles based on the exchange rate at the time of the election. Back.

Note 8: Allison and Lantz, 1996/97, p. 16. Back.

Note 9: This statement was made at the Harvard Russian Presidential Election Conference, April 18–19, 1996, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The transcript of the conference is available from SDI in its Russian Election Compendium. Lloyd again makes this assertion in his article, "The First Second Election: Russia at the Polls," Political Science Quarterly, Jan.-March 1997 vol. 68, p. 10. Back.

Note 10: Poll of 1648 individuals, conducted at the end of January 1996 by VTsIOM, reported in Segodnya, February 16, 1996. Back.

Note 11: "The First Second Election: Russia at the Polls" Political Science Quarterly, Jan.-March 1997 vol. 68, p. 13. Back.

Note 12: David Remnick, "The War for the Kremlin," The New Yorker, July 22, 1996, pp. 40–57. Back.

Note 13: Open Media Research Institute (OMRI), daily report , March 20, 25, 1996. Back.

Note 14: Izvestiya, April, 27, 1996; OMRI, daily report , April 29, 1996. Back.

Note 15: OMRI daily report , May 6–7, 1996. Back.

Note 16: Remnick, 1996, p.50. Back.

Note 17: VTsIOM released such a poll in April with Yeltsin trailing Zyuganov in the first round 26% to 18%, trailing in the second round 29% to 28%, but when asked who they expected to win, 40% of the respondents answered Yeltsin and 23% said Zyuganov. OMRI Daily Report, April, 18, 1996. Back.

Note 18: Quoted in Novye Izvestiya, May 14, 1998, p. 1, 3. Back.

Note 19: Poll reported in Obshchaya Gazeta, January 18–24, 1996. Back.

Note 20: New York Times, December 21, 1995. Back.

Note 21: Hindustan Times, August 7, 1998; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 8, 1998. Back.

Note 22: See Russian Regional Report, from OMRI, Vol. 2, No. 1, Jan. 8, 1997, and The Russian Election Compendium, compiled by the author and available from SDI, for lists of elected governors. Back.

Note 23: From the Preliminary Report of the European Institute for the Media, July 4, 1996, available from SDI. Back.

Note 24: The Prosecutor’s Office in Nizhnii Novgorod is also investigating allegations that officials falsified the results of the March mayoral election. Yuri Lebedev, who served and resigned as Yeltsin’s representative in the oblast claimed on local television in late July 1998 that Oblast Governor Ivan Sklyarov phoned election officials, asking them how many votes they shaved off Andrei Klimentiev’s total. Lebedev stated Klimentiev’s real margin of victory was 10 percent. From RFE/RL Daily Report, July 31, 1998. Back.

Note 25: For a summary of the Nizhnii Novgorod controversy see David Filipov’s article in The Boston Globe, April 9, 1998. Back.

Note 26: IFES Russia National Survey, October 1995, p. 121–27, cited by Catherine Barnes, IFES Moscow Director, in "Federal Election in Russia; the Necessity of Systemic Reforms," Demokratizatsiya, vol. IV, no. 3, p. 404. Back.

Note 27: Michael McFaul, "Russia’s Ominous Void", The New York Times, July 22, 1997, p. A19. Back.

Note 28: See Anatol Lieven, "Russia’s Military Nadir: The Meaning of the Chechen Debacle," National Interest, Summer 1996, pp.24–33. Back.

Note 29: Washington Post, August 28, 1998. Back.

Note 30: Grigory Yavlinsky, Foreign Affairs, vol. 77, no. 3, May/June 1998, pp. 67–79, pp. 68–70. Back.

Note 31: Key’s definition appears in Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups (New York: Crowell, 1958), pp. 180–82. For an overview of political party definitions and party behavior see Paul Allen Beck’s Party Politics in America, 8th edition, (New York: Longman, 1997) and John H. Aldrich’s Why Parties?, (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995). Back.

Note 32: The Communist Economic Platform for the election in 1996 appears in English in Gennady Zyuganov’s autobiography, My Russia, edited by Vadim Medish (Armonk, New York: M.E Sharpe, Inc., 1997) pp. 141–157. Back.

Note 33: Much of this material comes from a series of interviews with Communist Duma Deputy Tamara Gudima in her Duma office in Moscow, September 1995, October 1996, and March 1998. Back.

Note 34: Moskovsky Komsomolets, June 28, 1995 cited in Sergei Kolesnikov’s excellent summary of Our Home is Russia’s early months in his article "The Dilemma of Our Home is Russia: a View From the Inside," in Demokratizatsiya, vol. IV, no. 3, Summer 1996, edited by SDI. Back.

Note 35: Sergei Kolesnikov, "The Dilemma of `Our Home is Russia: a View From the Inside." Back.

Note 36: Alexei Mitrofanov, Russia’s New Geopolitics, July 1998, available from SDI. Back.

Note 37: Speech given in the Moscow suburb of Sergeev Posad and reprinted in the August 1995 issue of Sokol Zhirinovskogo (No.13), available in OMRI’s Transition December 1995, p. 23. Back.

Note 38: Richard Nixon, Beyond Peace, (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 54. Back.

Note 39: For a full description of the Yabloko party outlook, see Yavlinsky’s article "Russia’s Phony Capitalism," op. cit. Back.

Note 40: Joshua Tucker and Ted Brader, "Congratulations, It’s a Party! The Birth of Mass Political Parties in Russia, 1993–1996," pp. 19–26, presented at the American Political Science Association, Boston MA September 3–6, 1998. Back.

Note 41: Stephen White, Richard Rose, Ian McAllister, How Russia Votes, (Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House, 1997), p135–6. Back.

Note 42: Joshua Tucker and Ted Brader, op. cit. p.7. Back.

Note 43: Interview with Alexei Arbatov, August 1, 1997, Harvard University. Back.

Note 44: I count as significant those parties that cleared the 5% hurdle (Communists, LDPR, Our Home is Russia, and Yabloko) and those who came into the 1995 Duma with significant regional victories (Agrarians and Russia’s Choice). Back.

Note 45: Izvestiya, January 19, 1996. Back.

Note 46: See RFE/RL Newsline, May 21, 1998. Back.

Note 47: The Agrarian Party faction consists of the 20 Agrarian Party deputies elected from the single mandate races plus additional Communist deputies lent to give the faction the required 35 members to register. Back.

Note 48: Data from the State Duma of the Russian Federation official web site: www.duma.gov.ru/infgd/infgd.html. Back.

Note 49: M. Ornstein, T. Mann, and M. Malkin. "Vital Statistics in Congress 1997–1998 ," Congressional Quarterly, 1998, pp.211–12. Back.

Note 50: From GAO-NSIAD-96–40, Promoting Democracy: Progress Report on U.S. Democratic Development Assistance to Russia, February 1996. Back.

Note 51: Grigory Yavlinsky, "Russia’s Phony Capitalism," op. cit. Back.

Note 52: GAO-NSIAD-96–40, Promoting Democracy: Progress Report on U.S. Democratic Development Assistance to Russia, February 1996. Back.

Note 53: Michael McFaul, Russia’s 1996 Presidential Election: the End of Polarized Politics, (Stanford, California: Hoover Press, 1997) p. xi. Back.

Note 54: From "Protecting the Democratic Process: How to Create and Manage Ballot Security Programs for the Russian Federation," by Terry Campo, published by the Krieble Institute of the Free Congress Foundation, 1995. Back.