1993 Russian legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Russia on 12 December 1993.[1] They included the last elections to the Federation Council.[2]

1993 Russian State Duma election

12 December 1993
All 450 seats to the State Duma 226 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	54.81% 22.19 pp
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky Yegor Gaidar Gennady Zyuganov Party LDPR Russia's Choice Communist Party Seats won 64 64 42 Popular vote 12,318,562 8,339,345 6,666,402 Percentage 22.92% 15.51% 12.4%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Alevtina Fedulova Mikhail Lapshin Grigory Yavlinsky Party Women of Russia Agrarian Party of Russia Yabloko Seats won 23 37 27 Popular vote 4,369,918 4,292,518 4,223,219 Percentage 8.13% 8% 7.9%
Elected Chairman Ivan Rybkin Agrarian Party

1993 Russian Federation Council election

12 December 1993
All 178 seats to the Federation Council
Majority party Minority party   Party Independent Vacant seats Seats won 171 7 Popular vote 53,751,696 Percentage 100%
Elected Chairman Vladimir Shumeyko Independent

Background

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

Electoral system

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

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

Results

State Duma

Party		PR			Constituency			Total seats
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Liberal Democratic Party	12,318,562	22.9	59	1,577,400	3.0	5	64
	Russia's Choice	8,339,345	15.5	40	3,630,799	6.8	24	64
	Communist Party	6,666,402	12.4	32	1,848,888	3.5	10	42
	Women of Russia	4,369,918	8.1	21	309,378	0.6	2	23
	Agrarian Party	4,292,518	8.0	21	2,877,610	5.4	16	37
	Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin	4,223,219	7.9	20	1,849,120	3.5	7	27
	Party of Russian Unity and Accord	3,620,035	6.7	18	1,443,454	2.7	4	22
	Democratic Party	2,969,533	5.5	14	1,094,066	2.1	0	14
	Russian Democratic Reform Movement	2,191,505	4.1	0	1,083,063	2.0	5	5
	Civic Union	1,038,193	1.9	0	1,526,115	2.9	10	10
	Future of Russia–New Names	672,283	1.3	0	411,426	0.8	2	2
	Kedr	406,789	0.8	0	301,266	0.6	1	1
	Dignity and Charity	375,431	0.7	0	445,168	0.8	3	3
	Other parties	–	–	–	377,863	0.7	0	0
	Independents	–	–	–	25,961,405	48.7	130	130
Against all		2,267,963	4.2	–	8,509,300	16.0	–	–
Invalid/blank votes			–	–	4,248,927	–	–	–
Vacant seats^[a]		–	–	–	–	–	6	6
Total		53,751,696	100	225	57,495,248	100	225	450
Registered voters/turnout		106,170,835		–	106,170,835	54.2	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver, Politika.su

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

Federation Council

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

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

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

Aftermath

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

Parliamentary groups

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

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

References

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

External links

• Russian general elections (Dead Link)