The entire period of formation and consolidation of electoral authoritarianism in Russia (2000–2020) is divided by political scientists into two parts: the beginning, and evolution (consolidation). In general, such a division is also confirmed by legal analysis. But careful consideration of the legal component makes it possible to clarify the terms and objectives, which from this point of view become clearer and more prominent. According to the regulatory impact, these two parts could be designated as follows:
the power grab period (2000–2006);
the period of holding power (2006–2020), with 2006–2008 as semi-transitional years, when both tasks are performed simultaneously: the mechanisms for seizing power are still being improved, but power is already being transferred defensively (holding). The watershed between capture and retention is very clear, and we will try to prove it.
Part one. Seizure of power. “The main part of this stage chronologically coincides with the first two presidential terms of V. Putin (2000–2008). In general, it is distinguished by an extremely tough, centralized management of domestic policy, subordinated to the general “anti-regional” policy of the Kremlin. Aleksandr Kynev characterizes this time as “a period of reduced political competition, and voluntary and forcible co-optation of regional elites into an extensively growing single party of power, which was supposed to become a corporate conglomerate of the nomenklatura.”1
“2003–2005—the elimination of real and hypothetical obstacles to the dominance of the ruling group, and changes in the most important formal “rules of the game” aimed at monopolizing political power: the abolition of elections for the heads of the executive authorities of the regions and the reform of legislation on parties and elections,”2Vladimir Gelman adds to the description. In fact, the changes started much earlier than 2003. It is very likely that preparations for them began with the introduction of the term “presidential successor” into political circulation, and in business with the position of “successor to the president” and with the occupation of this position by Vladimir Putin. It seems everything was ready and thought out in advance, because it developed rapidly.
No, of course he didn’t die. On August 9, 1999, President Boris Yeltsin, in a special address to citizens, announced that he was dismissing the government of Sergei Stepashin, appointing Secretary of the Security Council and director of the FSB Vladimir Putin as acting chairman of the government, and said that he saw him as his successor.
On August 16, Putin took office as prime minister. On December 20, 1999, at a solemn meeting of FSB officers on the occasion of the day of the state security officer, he publicly “joked” that a group of FSB officers sent on an undercover business trip to work in the government had coped with their task at the first stage. On December 30, 1999, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article by the Prime Minister entitled “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium,” in which he outlined his political priorities: “patriotism,” “a great power,” “social solidarity,” and “a strong state.” New revolutions were unacceptable, the Soviet experience could not be underestimated, but it was also necessary to remember “the enormous price that society and the people paid during this social experiment.” Russia should look for its own path of transformation instead of “schemes from Western textbooks.”3
On December 31, 1999, Boris Yeltsin addressed the Russians with a statement of voluntary resignation (“I’m tired, I’m leaving!”) and expressed hope that in three months the people would vote “correctly.” On March 26, 2000, Putin was elected president of Russia and took office a month and a half later, on May 7. Exactly one week later, on May 13, Decree No. 849 “On the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Federal District” was adopted, which actually changed the nature of federal relations and the territorial division of the Russian Federation.4 That is, everything was ready in advance. The “Club of Governors” of the post-Soviet neo-nomenklatura group (“Fatherland—All Russia”), which was a direct competitor to the 47-year-old president and his team (“Unity”), was ripe for destruction. Therefore, the new government began with forced centralization from above. Grigory Golosov called this process “centralization without authoritarianism.”5 So far it had been so, almost bloodless, although the ruthless struggle with real and imaginary competitors is an integral feature of all Putin’s rule.
A few months later, on September 1, 2000, Decree No. 1602 “On the State Council of the Russian Federation”6 was issued, in accordance with which an advisory body with an open list of powers not provided for by the Basic Law was created, consisting, in addition to the president, of the heads of the highest executive bodies of the subjects of the Federation. On August 5, 2000, at the insistence of the President, a new Law “On the procedure for forming the Federation Council” was adopted. Its members began to be appointed by the legislative body of the subject and the head of the executive branch of the region. Before that, as we remember, the upper house of parliament included the governors themselves and the chairmen of the legislative assemblies, who combined their main work with the senatorial one. The rotation of members of the chamber was completed by 2002. It would seem that this is not a centralized measure at all. And actually it isn’t. The “Club of Governors” lost its official meeting place in Moscow and the ability to consolidate influence on the adopted laws. It was decentralized, while the federal government, on the contrary, increased its leverage over the chamber, which, by definition, is obliged to represent regional interests. The State Council was created for the governors, but, unlike the independent chamber of parliament, which had a number of important legislative and other powers, it was only a legislative advisory body.
By 2002, there was a transition from framework to comprehensive federal regulation of a huge list of issues, undermining the very idea of joint jurisdiction of the Federation and its subjects, which called into question the federal structure of the state as a whole. In the 2003 amendments to the Law “On General Principles of Organization of Legislative (Representative) and Executive Bodies of Power of the Subjects [of the Federation],”7 a number of positions defined by Article 72 of the Constitution suddenly disappeared from the competence of the subjects. Later, some joint jurisdictions were simply directly redistributed in favor of the Federation. In addition, extra-constitutional forms of federal interference were introduced and implemented (for example, the right of the president to dissolve regional representative bodies) with the actual refusal of the Constitutional Court to use a method specially provided for by the Constitution to resolve such conflicts—disputes over competence. This led to a massive revision of regional constitutions and laws.
The centralization blitzkrieg took place. The next in line in the plans of the nomenklatura that came to power was party building from above and the seizure of parliament.
The most important milestone of this period was a radical change in the legal regulation of the party system.
In June 2001, the Law “On Political Parties”8 was adopted. The fact is that until 2001 in Russia (Soviet and post-Soviet) there was never a special normative legal act establishing the status, organization and activities of political parties. Until that time, parties were considered as one of the varieties of public associations, and their features were determined by one article of the relevant federal law. This meant, as in the case of any other public association, three people could hold a congress or meeting, decide on the creation of a party, and submit registration documents to the Ministry of Justice. This provision was not accidental and was not a gap in the legislation. Rather, it was about a conceptual approach to the issue of the limits of state intervention in the activities of political parties as the main non-state players in the political system of society. Because any dependence (including formal) of parties on the state reduces their political potential and electoral competitiveness.9 Under certain conditions, this potential can be generally reduced to zero, and then the parties recognized by the state turn into a simulacrum—the external appearance of an institution filled with content different from the declared one, which has nothing in common with a real political structure.
A state which is a staunch supporter and defender of the principle of regular periodic change of power is unlikely to interfere much in the organization and activities of political parties. It is likely to be limited to the issues of their partial funding in order to avoid the dependence of parties on large lobbyists, issues of transparency and accountability, as well as the requirement to limit the functioning of the party within the framework of the current legislation as a criterion for its legitimacy. And that is all. But a state that does not consider the turnover of power as one of its priorities is likely to act differently. It will certainly try to bring the process of political competition to a level that can be regulated from above. Including by adopting complex technical rules that will make political parties completely dependent on the state. We remember Kynev’s maxim about the vicious circle: “In order to have power, you need to be elected, and in order to be elected, you need to have power.” Then there is an endless chain of needs, which becomes more capricious as the electoral situation transforms. Having a tool in hand to manipulate the “life and death” of their group political opponents is the coveted dream of any autocrat.
And this tool was created.
Firstly, according to the new law, all-Russian parties became the only type of public organizations that had the right to nominate candidates and participate in federal elections (another ardent greeting to the Club of Governors from the new President). Moreover, participation in the elections was an obligation for the parties, and non-participation for a certain time called into question their very existence.
Secondly, the law prohibited the creation of parties based on professional, racial, national, or religious affiliation.
Thirdly, all parties had to re-register with the Ministry of Justice according to new rules and new requirements. Thus, the state directly made the parties dependent on the executive branch, and the rules and requirements were instantly and radically changed:
the total minimum number of the party was set at 10,000 members, and a requirement was introduced for the presence of branches of at least 100 people in at least half of the regions;
the internal structure, membership and charter of the party, and the procedure for adopting the main party documents was strictly regulated;
state funding for parties was established.
To be honest, it is still not entirely clear how it was possible to carry out the plan. Why did the communists not only support the Law on Parties, but supervise its adoption, since the responsible committee was headed by their representative? Why didn’t Yabloko and SPS speak out sharply and loudly? Didn’t they understand the meaning? Was this law considered an unimportant specifying act? It was clear from the outset that it severely curtailed competition in the electoral process. The only plausible version, proposed by Gennady Gudkov, is that it was adopted at the very end of a deliberately extended session, in a package with some special government order, when most of the deputies were no longer at their workplaces. Indeed, in May 2001, Prime Minister Kasyanov sent a letter to State Duma Chairman Gennady Seleznev with a proposal to extend the chamber’s spring session until July 12, 2001. The law was adopted on July 11.10
By the time the new law was adopted, 59 political parties were registered in the country. By mid-2004, only 46 parties were able to complete all registration procedures. In 2004, the minimum number of members of a party was increased to 50,000 members. The parties were given only one year to bring the number in line with the new requirements. Parties that did not meet the new requirements by January 1, 2006 were subject to judicial liquidation. As a result, by the middle of 2006, out of 46 previously registered parties, 35 had retained their status (by this time, some parties had already been liquidated due to the inability to meet the new requirements), and after the Rosregistration check, only 19 remained. By the beginning of the election campaign for the State Duma elections in 2007 15 political parties remained. In autumn 2008, the process of reducing the number of political parties continued. As a result, of the previously existing parties, only six remained. Everyone who did not fit into the rather narrow “Procrustean bed” of the current political system was actually deprived of the right to exist. They had to either disappear altogether or be artificially squeezed out of the framework of the legal political process.
As a result, there was a sharp artificial reduction of participatory actors in the political process at the federal and regional levels, and a de facto ban on the creation of new parties was introduced for more than a decade. The electoral field was cleared of unnecessary competitors of the ruling party. By 2008, in most regions, only the parties represented in the Duma, United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia, participated in the elections. Only they were not afraid of legislative obstacles (more precisely, they were afraid, just to a lesser extent), since the law gave them privileges in the form of registering regional lists without submitting signatures or making pledges.11
And it gets worse and worse the farther it goes on. It didn’t matter anymore which party the candidate was elected from as mayor or deputy in the district in the region, they tried to force him to move to United Russia, which eventually included representatives of all existing parties, from liberals to nationalists and former communists (one can recall the joining of United Russia by mayors elected from the Communist Party V. Kondrashov (Irkutsk), A. Kasyanov (Orel), and R. Grebennikov (Volgograd); by a member of Rodyna, E. Kachanovsky (of Smolensk), etc.). Therefore, Alexander Kynev calls this period “The Age of Surkov: co-optation, centralization, and verticalization.”12 Actually, these three nouns are quite enough to characterize the program of the United Russia party. Everything else that is written about it is superficial and has nothing to do with its real goal-setting and activities.
The provisions of the Law on Parties were twice the subject of review by the Constitutional Court.13 The court, as usual, analyzed the constitutionality of the requirements imposed by the state on political parties with a high degree of legal uncertainty: “In the issue of the numerical composition of political parties and the territorial scale of their activity the legislature possesses a sufficient degree of discretion, and considering that the issue to a considerable degree is connected with political expediency…,” “only sufficiently large and well-structured political parties can reflect the will and interests of the multinational people of the Russian Federation.” That is, once again the Court refrained from considering the issue on the merits. Thus, the Russian Law “On Political Parties” actually became a law on state control over political parties and the political process as a whole.
Of all the “dead” parties, only one—the Republican Party of Russia—continued to fight for its rights. After a series of lawsuits related to the refusal of the Ministry of Justice to recognize its congresses as legitimate, and the cancellation of the RPR registration in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the party applied to the ECtHR and won. In its decision on the complaint of the Republican Party, the European Court found the Russian legislation on political parties to violate human rights, the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on liquidation was canceled, and the registration of the party was restored. But this happened only 10 years later, in April 2011.14 Now the party has been renamed PARNAS (party of people’s freedom).
From 1994, for two and a half convocations, the main chamber of the Russian parliament, responsible for lawmaking, was a platform for heated discussions. Contradictory, lively, arguing, reaching compromises and very active. None of the factions within the Duma had a significant quantitative advantage. Moreover, in the absence of any sanctions for switching to another faction, the balance of power in the chamber was constantly changing.15 The Duma openly criticized the President and the government, actively used the control powers at its disposal, and was a counterbalance to the executive power, as far as possible.
For example, during the two years of operation of the first transitional parliament, only two thirds of all adopted laws (310 out of 461) were signed by the president and entered into force. Many laws were not automatically approved by the Federation Council, but went to the joint conciliation commissions of the chambers for revision. In a number of cases, the president was forced to exercise the right of suspensive veto granted to him by the Constitution, which the chambers tried (sometimes successfully) to overcome. In six years, from 1994 to 2000, Yeltsin used the right of veto 307 times.16 The deputies even made an attempt to initiate the procedure for removing the president from office, and twice the chamber voted for a vote of no confidence in the Government (once successfully) and raised questions about passing votes of no confidence in individual ministers.
Such an active parliamentary life went on until the middle of the third convocation, when in April 2002 the so-called “package agreement” on the distribution of posts and responsibilities of the parties that received deputy mandates, which had been concluded by the factions at the very beginning of the convocation, even before the first meeting of the chamber, was violated.17 Violation of the package agreement can safely be called a parliamentary coup. As a result of the revision of the package agreement, the left, which had the largest faction in terms of numbers, lost most of the committees they controlled. The “Duma revolution” took place at a truly whirlwind pace. On April 1, the leaders of six factions and deputy groups (Edinstvo (Unity)), Otechestvo—VsiaRossiya (OVR), People’s Deputy, Regions of Russia, Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko) at a closed meeting decided to revise the package agreement. On April 2, the relevant resolution was submitted for discussion to the Duma. And already on April 3, the chamber voted to remove left-wing leadership positions in seven committees and transfer these positions to factions that were deprived during the distribution of posts in January 2000: OVR (the future United Russia), Union of Right Forces, Regions of Russia, and Yabloko.
From the position of today, a completely logical question arises: did the liberal factions really not understand that by violating the package agreement, they themselves signed their future sentence? It seems that they naively automatically continued their fight against the communists, not seeing anything further than their own noses. After all, procedure is always a guarantee of democracy, and a departure from it is a departure from democracy. Even in the most difficult situations, it is the procedure that allows you to keep the system from destruction. But the democratic tradition had not yet been formed. The deputies acted tactically, not understanding the threat looming over them for many years to come. Violation of the agreement showed the executive branch all the advantages of working with a controlled and obedient parliament. While the right-wingers were implementing the desired reforms in relation to land and property, the committee responsible for constitutional legislation, which had passed into the hands of the future party in power, began active preparations for the 2003 elections, which blocked the representation of the real opposition in parliament for the next 18 years.18
Establishing a monocentric system of power with fully integrated representative and other elected bodies is not an easy task. It was impossible to solve it without distorting the constitutional principles of the electoral system, since it is impossible to form obedient bodies during free and fair elections. An independent parliament is unacceptable for a vertical monocentric system, since monocentrism does not imply any additional participation in making any decisions. In addition, it is elections that ensure the natural turnover of power, and this categorically contradicts the very idea of monocentrism. Based on the task set, a systematic, gradually increasing transformation of the electoral legislation began in the direction of building a system of electoral authoritarianism, that is, in the opposite direction from democracy. After all, “democracy by no means guarantees citizens that they will live better. Democracy only reduces the risk that, in an autocracy, they will suffer from the arbitrariness of corrupt rulers who violate their rights, while not having the opportunity for a peaceful change of power.”19
Since 2002, not a single election in Russia has been held according to the same rules as the previous ones. For example, in the period from 2002 to 2015, the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation” was amended 73 times. A total of 898 amendments were made to it (an average of 69 changes per year and between 250 and 300 changes during each four-year election cycle), and the length of the text of the law grew from about 470,000 to about 760,000 characters. Amendments were repeatedly made to the same norms, individual institutions were haphazardly excluded and returned depending on the momentary situation and political expediency (for example, the position “against all”). As a result, electoral laws ceased to be laws as such and turned into hard-to-execute instructions actively used to manipulate the electoral process.
And this is understandable. Before the elections, the task of creating a discussion platform for parliament to reach consensus was no longer set. On the contrary, it was necessary by any means to form an obedient parliament dependent on the executive branch. That is why the electoral legislation changed so often. In each election cycle, it had to adjust to the situation—the fall in the ratings of the ruling party, the growing opposition, the emergence of charismatic leaders, the decline in turnout, growing public oversight—anything, any factor that would interfere with the achievement of goals.
A few months after the parliamentary coup, in June 2002, a new Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation” was adopted20 (hereinafter referred to as the Law “On Basic Guarantees…” of 2002). The adoption of this law was a top priority, as the authorities were preparing for the next parliamentary elections. The text of the law almost doubled in size. “In terms of the volume of legal regulation, the affected areas of public relations, the level and quality of systematization, the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees” began to have the value of a code in the electoral legislation.”21 As a result, a situation arose where, when holding elections at any level, it was necessary to rely on the norms of at least two laws at once, largely duplicating each other and containing detailed regulation of all stages of the electoral process. These laws often contradicted each other, created confusion, and complicated the electoral process.22 Thus, the electoral legislation turned into a hard-to-read, hard-to-enforce, and largely internally contradictory set of norms that created artificial obstacles in the course of preparing and holding elections.
Following the new version of the Law “On Basic Guarantees…”, a new Law “On Elections of Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation” was adopted.23 Having retained outwardly the main parameters of the electoral system, this law made significant adjustments to its individual provisions. Thus, the party list was now required to be divided into at least seven regional groups.24 The institution of nominating candidates by a group of voters,25 which had existed in the Russian electoral legislation for almost ten years, was abolished.
Less than six months before the 2003 State Duma elections, a whole package of amendments was again introduced to the Laws “On Basic Guarantees…” and “On the Elections of Deputies…” in 2002. The main innovationwas the ban on participation in elections of public associations that were not political parties (even as part of electoral blocs).26 Thus, the state artificially forced the socio-political environment into the party framework and led to the strengthening of the indirect control of the state bureaucracy over the deputy corps through control over the party bureaucracy.
The new rules also limited the right of candidates to free airtime for election campaigning. All-Russian public organizations that “have debts to television and radio broadcasting organizations and editorial offices of printed periodicals on the day of the official publication of the decision to call elections” were deprived of this time.
Another innovation: for the first time in ten years of history, the value of the threshold was changed—it was raised to 7%. The goal was to fight corruption. In practice, a different result was achieved—the most favorable conditions were created for large political parties.27“In democratic countries, only blocs are cut off at such a mark, not parties. Potentially, this means that with an average voter turnout of about 65% of registered voters, up to 4 million citizens who voted for a party that did not overcome the threshold, will generally be deprived of representation in parliament,”V. L. Sheinis described the situation.28 The potential for such a huge loss of votes nullified all previous achievements in the field of ensuring the representative character of the Parliament.
The Law “On Basic Guarantees…” introduced a rule on the participation of party lists in the elections of legislative (representative) authorities of the constituent entities of the Federation. This rule became mandatory on July 15, 2003. The first elections under the new rules were held in seven regions along with the elections of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the 4th convocation on December 7, 2003. The regions gradually brought their legislation in line with the new norms. However, in 2002–2003, not a single region that had not previously used a mixed electoral system switched to it “voluntarily.”
The parliamentary elections on December 7, 2003 were the first federal campaign held under Vladimir Putin. By that time, as we know, the institution of plenipotentiaries in federal districts had already been invented and introduced, and governors, although they could still be elected in direct elections (they would be canceled in 2004), ceased to be ex officio members of the Federation Council. Big business was explained the inadmissibility of interference in social and political life: the first was Vladimir Gusinsky, who signed Protocol No. 6 in exchange for freedom, abandoning his own NTV channel. On the eve of the Duma elections, in September 2003, Boris Berezovsky received asylum in the UK, and on October 25, 2003, the head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who provided financial support to a number of parties, was arrested.
Representatives of the nomenklatura, who in the previous three convocations failed to get a majority in the Duma, this time united in the United Russia party and seriously fought for victory. “Together with the President”, “A Strong Russia—United Russia”, “Let’s take power—we will respond with deeds!” the head of the supreme council of the new party Boris Gryzlov and its founders Sergei Shoigu, Yuri Luzhkov and Mintimer Shaimiev promised in campaign materials. United Russia’s agitation firmly tied it to the image of Vladimir Putin: according to the Levada Center, in December 2003, 86% of the respondents approved of his activities. “Only a professional, competent government, formed by the president and supported by a parliamentary majority, is able to solve the tasks set by the president,” the United Russia party leaflet said, and among these “tasks” were mentioned “doubling the GDP” and “overcoming poverty.”
As a result of the campaign, the party in power for the first time took first place in the Duma elections, receiving a total of 223 mandates. Another 52 seats went to the Communist Party, 37 to Motherland, 36 to the Liberal Democratic Party. But the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko did not get into the State Duma.29They were not admitted thanks toa careful falsification. This made it possible to create a stable constitutional majority in the lower house, regularly rubber-stamping any laws necessary for the executive branch.
An important feature of the election campaigns of this period is that from 2002, in regional and then in federal elections, the administrative-resource electoral technique began to be tested, eliminating political competition and achieving the desired result on the ground through a total “cleansing” of all groups of voters: pressure on state employees; threats to pensioners; ballot box stuffing; falsification of voting results; falsified vote counts in voting held outside the voting premises; the organization of 100% voting in psychiatric clinics, etc. Actually, all the dirty electoral methods that Russian political technologists and election headquarters mastered over the previous decade were adopted by the state itself. Moreover, these techniques were monopolized and improved by it.
Representatives of the executive branch, election commissions, law enforcement agencies (through non-intervention) and courts were involved in the implementation of the techniques, which did not find liability for violations of electoral legislation and did not cancel the voting results, that is, they provided a system of impunity for violators.
This was largely facilitated by the attack on the independence of the judiciary, which began simultaneously with the reform of the party system. In order to maintain control over the courts, the president’s powers in this area were specially expanded. In December 2001, contrary to the provision of paragraph “e” of Article 83 of the Constitution (the right to submit candidates to the Federation Council for appointment to the position of judges of the Supreme, Supreme Arbitration, and Constitutional Courts), an amendment was made to the law on the status of judges, according to which the Federation Council appoints chairmen and deputy chairmen of the Supreme and Higher Arbitration Courts on the uncontested proposal of the president. The president also received the monopoly right to appoint the chairmen of all courts, up to and including district courts. The “birth trauma” of the Constitution, the final version of which was drawn up in emergency conditions and provided a strong bias in favor of presidential power, placing it above all other branches, actively began to realize its authoritarian potential.
On September 28, 2004, a collective lawsuit was filed with the Supreme Court of Russia to challenge the results of the 2003 parliamentary elections. Revision of the results was demanded by the political parties of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Yabloko, as well as representatives of the organization “Committee—2008: A Free Choice”—Vladimir Ryzhkov, Irina Khakamada, Sergei Ivanenko, Evgeny Kiselev, Georgiy Satarov and Dmitry Muratov. The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation was named the defendant in the upcoming case.
The applicants believed that the number of violations of the electoral legislation committed in the autumn and winter of 2003 exceeded all permissible limits, which meant that on this basis the Supreme Court should review the election results. If the Supreme Court agreed with the plaintiffs, the CEC would have to call and hold new elections to the State Duma.
The first group of claims brought by the applicants in court contained evidence of gross violations of the rules for informing voters about the course of the election campaign. According to the plaintiffs, the state media were deliberately used to campaign in favor of one party, United Russia. The rest of the election participants were either ignored or deliberately compromised. State TV channels, which were obliged to provide equal air time to all candidates, gave United Russia 40% of this time. Of this amount of broadcasting, almost two thirds was, according to the losing parties, illegal election campaigning.30
The second group of claims related to the provision of deliberately false information about candidates to voters. The main complaints were, of course, directed against the same “United Russia.” The applicants asserted that the “party of power” deliberately misled the representatives of the electorate, as it included in its list 37 people who renounced their mandates after the elections. Among them were the heads of regions, ministers and other famous people such as Sergey Shoigu, Yuri Luzhkov, Mintimer Shaimiev, Yegor Stroev, Boris Gromov, Eduard Rossel, Aman Tuleev, and Alexander Khloponin. According to the plaintiffs, voters voted precisely for these public figures, and since they immediately entrusted their mandates to lesser-known party comrades immediately after the elections, it turned out that the citizens who voted for them were misled.
The third group of claims contained data on violations in the counting of votes. Basically, these were inconsistencies revealed when comparing the official data of the protocols for single-mandate and federal districts. The plaintiffs found violations in the documents of 73 district election commissions out of 225. According to them, there were also numerous discrepancies in the data of precinct and territorial commissions (that is, about rewriting protocols).
The hearing of the case in court lasted daily for five weeks, with breaks only on weekends. The result was predictable—the court dismissed the complaint. It is from this time that we can talk about unfree, unfair and non-competitive elections in Russia under conditions of blocking a fair trial of electoral disputes in the courts. Moreover, the level of lack of freedom, injustice and non-competitiveness increased every year.
Subsequently (in 2013), the procedural deadlines for appealing the election results would be reduced by four times: from one year to three months. After the Duma elections in 2003 and 2007, it took at least six months to collect documents for applying to the Supreme Court to cancel the voting results. This innovation seriously reduced the chances of any attempt to reasonably challenge any of the results of a vote.
All subsequent elections in Russia were held according to the same administrative-resource scheme, with minor nuances, supported by amendments to the electoral legislation that changed in favor of the authorities. Their results were easily predictable, and the population progressively and steadily lost faith in their political rights and trust in the state.
On September 3, 2004, two explosions thundered in the sports hall of secondary school No. 1 in the city of Beslan (North Ossetia). They became the bloody denouement of a three-day drama: on Knowledge Day (Sept. 1), terrorists took hostage participants of the school assembly festivities—teachers, schoolchildren and their parents, as well as small children who came to see their brothers and sisters who were already going to school. The result of the tragedy: 335 dead, of which 186 were children. Losses were suffered by the “Alpha” and “Vympel” special forces—10 people did not return from this mission.
Ten days after the Beslan tragedy, on September 13, 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at an enlarged government meeting, announced what needed to be done so that such terrorist attacks did not happen again. “While fighting manifestations of terror, we practically did not achieve visible results,” these words, uttered by Putin on September 13, 2004, were both logical and expected. But what the president said next surprised many. It turned out that in order to fight terrorism, it was necessary to change the political system of the country, by abolishing the election of governors. “The highest officials of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation should be elected by the legislative assemblies of the territories on the proposal of the head of state,” the president said.31
“If most of Putin’s reforms in 2000 involved a consistent rejection of the ‘Yeltsin legacy,’ then in the last three months of 2004, President Putin’s activity was actually reduced to his struggle with the year 2000 model of himself,” wrote Kommersant Vlast’ magazine.32
So, the most notorious “anti-terrorist” reform of 2004 was the transition from popular elections of governors to their actual appointment. The rejection of perhaps the main democratic achievement of the Yeltsin era turned out to be all the more unexpected since the problem of the “gubernatorial freemen” seemed to have been finally resolved back in 2000. Then the president first appointed “overseers” to the regional leaders—his plenipotentiaries in the federal districts, then expelled the governors from the Federation Council, depriving them of the parliamentary immunity attached to this status, and, to top it off, introduced a norm into the legislation that allowed the removal of heads of regions from office for violating federal laws.
In September 2004, Putin decided to abandon even the semblance of free elections and move on to the approval of governors by regional parliaments on the proposal of the president, or, in other words, to their direct appointment by the Kremlin. It is clear that this measure had nothing to do with strengthening the fight against terrorism: it is unlikely that, say, the president of North Ossetia, being not popularly elected, but appointed by the president of the Russian Federation, could have prevented the seizure of the school in Beslan. On the other hand, this procedure allowed the Kremlin not to be distracted by all sorts of trifles, such as pushing through the candidates it needed in the gubernatorial elections, but to focus entirely on the task that it considered to be the main one for itself at the moment— mobilizing the entire society for the war declared on Russia by terrorists.
Another “anti-terrorist” measure was the amendments to the Law “On Political Parties.” Its main goal was to drastically limit potential election participants.33 The requirements for the minimum membership of a political party and its regional branches were increased fivefold: from 10,000 to 50,000 people and from 100 to 500 people, respectively. The requirements for the number of regional branches were also changed: now they had to be created in more than half of the subjects.34
And a year later, the electoral system itself was changed. With the adoption of the Law “On Elections of Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”35 in 2005, there was a transition from a mixed majority-proportional system to a fully proportional one. Now all 450 deputies of the State Duma were to be elected on party lists in a single federal constituency using the “Hare quota” and the rule of the largest remainder.
Back in May 2004, the head of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, first announced the expediency of canceling elections to the State Duma by single-mandate districts and switching to purely party elections. However, this idea really took hold of the ruling masses precisely in September, when President Putin named it among other measures to strengthen the “vertical of power” in the fight against terrorism. And if in May this proposal seemed just a way to simplify the procedure for forming the lower house of parliament as much as possible (after all, it is obviously easier for the Kremlin to organize the passage of three or four necessary parties to the Duma than to promote two hundred of its single-mandate members), then in September, against the background of the initiative to appoint governors, this idea took on a whole new meaning. After all, now Russians were deprived of the right to personally vote not only for the head of their region, but also for a specific State Duma deputy. And although the law on the election of deputies “allowed” non-party candidates to be included in party lists, it became much more difficult for a non-party Russian to get into the party list than to become a candidate for deputy by means of declaring one’s candidacy (self-nomination).
Naturally, among the arguments in favor of a complete transition to a proportional system, there were arguments that it was more fair and that, unlike the majority system, it takes into account the will of the majority of active voters.36 However, the opposite arguments are no less weighty, since the loss of votes in such a system can also be significant. In addition, the complete rejection of the majoritarian part of the elections inevitably leads to a weakening of the connection between voters and those elected, so it would be more reasonable to replace the majoritarian system of relative majority with a similar system of absolute or even qualified majority, which by their nature provide a high level of representation in parliament. The “disappearance” of votes could also be minimized by establishing an alternative vote.37 But, unfortunately, all these arguments were not taken into account by the legislator, despite the fact that opinion polls in 2005 showed an extremely low level of public confidence in political parties (according to VTsIOM polls, parties in Russia were less trusted than courts and police, by only about 17% of citizens).38
All this was extremely strange, because in the 2003 Duma elections, United Russia, having received only 37.6% of the votes on party lists and winning in less than half of the single-mandate constituencies, was able to secure the status of the dominant party by recruiting the majority of the single-mandate members who participated in elections as independent candidates. The decision to abandon the mixed system in favor of a purely proportional one looked all the more paradoxical—victory had been achieved precisely thanks to the mixed form.
It also looked strange from the point of view of the authoritarian strategy, which by this time had already manifested itself quite clearly. The literature is ambiguous about the impact of mixed systems in general and mixed independent (parallel) systems in particular on the development of democracy. However, it can be considered established that such systems are used more widely in autocracies than in democracies. This indirectly indicates that mixed systems at least do not contradict the structure of political incentives characteristic of authoritarian regimes,39especially since the use of proportional representation entails fragmentation of the party system (risk of competition). Under these conditions, the use of a mixed system (at least its independent version) looks like an acceptable institutional compromise. But, apparently, the authors of the reform acted tactically and situationally, having only momentary electoral plans. Naturally, this tactic did not justify itself strategically, because it was a priori dangerous for the current course. Therefore, over time, the fully proportional system was abolished. Everything went back to normal.
But then, in 2005, in connection with the rejection of majoritarian elections, the ratio of the federal and regional parts of the list of candidates changed dramatically, which seriously complicated the procedure for compiling and nominating them. No more than three people could now be included in the federal part, and the minimum number of regional parts increased to one hundred.40 The principle of equal access of parties to elections was also changed. Since 2005, parties not represented in the State Duma were put in a deliberately worse position compared to the electoral associations that overcame the threshold in the previous elections. The former now had to either collect signatures in their support or pay an electoral pledge, but could not do both at the same time (making an “insurance” deposit in case registration failed based on the collected signatures). At the same time, the procedure for verifying signatures was complicated: the percentage of acceptable “defects” decreased from 25 to 5%. Thus, the state had a legal opportunity to reject any number of signatures for a variety of practical reasons. But the possibility of contesting the results of verification of signatures was actually eliminated. All this together put the opposition parties not represented in the Duma in a deliberately losing position when exercising their right to nominate a list of candidates, and, consequently, had an extremely negative impact on the formation of a multi-party system in the country and the possibility of a real discussion and competitive struggle in the political system. The opposition was artificially ousted to the periphery of public life and, at best, got the right to exist within a strictly limited “electoral ghetto.”
The 2005 Law “On the Election of Deputies…” also completely eliminated the sanctions for refusing to accept a deputy’s mandate. But it is precisely this argument, as we remember, that was voiced in the courts when appealing against the election results. Now any candidate had the opportunity freely and with impunity within seven days after the day of voting to decline the mandate.41 This was done specifically for the so-called “steam locomotives”—media or regional leaders inserted into the federal part of the list, but who had no real intentions to run for parliament. For example, in the 2007 elections, governors, the President of the Russian Federation personally, as well as a number of other media people acted as such figures. Only 19 out of 84 heads of regions of the Russian Federation were not included in the lists of candidates (all of these cases concern the list of candidates from the United Russia party). Ultimately, this led to the consolidation of the monopoly of the officials put at the head of the party and the heads of party building on the formation of party lists and the selection of candidates and opened up wide opportunities for manipulation—up to and including the correction of the composition of already elected and formed factions.42
In addition, a rule was introduced on depriving a deputy’s mandate in the event of a deputy’s transfer from one faction to another.43 It would seem that such a norm is a guarantee against political defectors, which allows better taking into account the will of voters who voted for specific electoral associations, which, ideally, should reflect the balance of political forces in society through the composition of the chamber of parliament. However, as a result, the deputies completely lost their independence and responsibility to the citizens who elected them, becoming hostages of the leadership of political parties.
Subsequent changes in the electoral legislation affected several more fundamental provisions of the electoral right. First of all, the possibility of voting against all presented candidates was abolished,44 that is, protest voting was completely excluded at elections at all levels. It seemed to cease to exist altogether and to influence the results. The only way to express their opinion for citizens who disagreed with the proposed party lists was to vote “with their feet”—by ignoring the elections, or damaging or removing ballots from the polling stations.45 All the talk that voting “against all” is “destructive”46 is worth absolutely nothing. Even the dependent Constitutional Court was forced to state that “voting “against all” in free elections does not mean an indifferent, but a negative attitude of voters towards all candidates,”47 that is, these candidates do not have the support of voters necessary and sufficient to ensure genuine representation of the people, which should be the result of the election. Thus, the role of voting “against all” was officially designated as a form of expression of the will of citizens during elections, which would be a mistake to consider as less important than other forms for ensuring the representativeness of the elected body. But who listens to the court in authoritarian regimes?
In the summer of 2006, parties were forbidden to include representatives of other parties in the electoral lists, and deputies were forbidden to leave the party from which they were elected. This meant that, following the ban on pre-election blocs in 2005, inter-party unions were now banned altogether, when members of one ally party are included in the electoral list of another (in such a way, for example, members of the Union of Right Forces were included in the Yabloko list in the elections of the Moscow City Duma). In November-December 2006, new amendments to the electoral legislation abolished the turnout threshold for declaring elections valid, prohibited criticism of opponents on television during the official campaign, and strengthened the grounds for restricting passive suffrage in connection with participation in “extremist” activities.
In fact, the turnout threshold is a very important factor in elections. “Turnout” refers to the percentage of voters who take part in the vote. The presence of a turnout threshold (elections are considered valid if a certain percentage of voters participate in them) is a guarantee that the opinions of the majority are taken into account. The fall in voters’ confidence in the state and elections inevitably leads to a decrease in turnout. The critical drop in turnout casts doubt on the legitimacy of any vote. Turnout is always a headache for authoritarian regimes.
For example, in the presidential elections on March 14, 2004, the main intrigue was not the name of the winner, but what the turnout would be, since in order for the elections to take place in principle, it was necessary to ensure that more than 50% of Russians with the right to vote went to the polls. Officials across the country made a lot of efforts to ensure that citizens exercised their right to choose. A few weeks before March 14, information began to appear in the media about gifts, discounts on utility bills and free haircuts for those who voted, as well as about the sale of cheap food organized in front of the polling stations. In some institutions, March 14 was declared a working day, and ballot boxes were delivered directly to workshops and offices. In others, all employees were assigned to voting brigades, and in each of the brigades a person was appointed responsible for the turnout of all its members at the polling station. People were forced to vote under the threat of not passing college or university exams, not receiving bonuses, or even being fired. And according to the information of the CEC members from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, in the Moscow city and Saratov regional election commissions, citizens who were not even registered as residing in Russia were included in the voting lists.48And such a hassle every election! Of course, for the unhindered achievement of authoritarian goals, the turnout threshold had to be abolished. Such a trifle, but what a hindrance! Since the abolition of the turnout threshold, the term “to dry the elections” has appeared in the lexicon of Russian political techniques. It means governmental media oblivion of the ongoing election campaign, when the elections seem to be scheduled, the campaign is underway, but they don’t talk about it or write about it in the media. What is this for? Why write and speak? The turnout threshold has been abolished. Everyone who needs to be is brought to the polls. The desired result will still be provided. And if you write and speak, then you never know what will happen. The practice of “drying” elections was especially widespread in the regions, ensuring the calmness of the local administration.
To complete the picture, it is necessary to say a few words about the Russian legislation on referendums. This instrument of direct democracy in our country has always been very much feared. The federal law on the referendum was adopted almost the last of all the laws directly named in the Constitution of the USSR of 1977—in December 1990, two months later than a similar law of the RSFSR. And only one referendum under this law was held (March 17, 1991, on the preservation of the USSR). The Russian Law on Referendum was also used only twice: when introducing the post of President of Russia and during the referendum on April 25, 1993, which received the popular name “yes-yes-no-yes.” As we remember, the referendum on December 12, 1993 on the adoption of the Constitution was held not according to the rules of the law, but according to a special one-time procedure provided for by a presidential decree. Not a single referendum passed without scandal and they were not distinguished by the cleanliness of procedures.
Not a single federal referendum has been held since, and this is no coincidence. The legislation on the referendum in Russia is designed in such a way that it is almost impossible to initiate and hold one, despite the existence of the current law. Experts have long been proposing to transfer the study of the institution of the referendum from the course in constitutional law to a course in history. The “twisting” of the legal regulation of this institution to the state of complete impossibility of implementation falls precisely in the period of transformation of the electoral legislation that we are describing. Moreover, there is only one framework law for a referendum and elections—“On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation.” The Constitutional Court has repeatedly examined the provisions of the legislation on the referendum for its compliance with the Constitution,49 but this did not lead to a correction of the situation.
In 2002–2004, the State Duma adopted amendments to the legislation that significantly complicate the already difficult organization of referendums. In particular, a moratorium was introduced on holding a referendum in the last year before the presidential and parliamentary elections. The deadline for collecting the two million signatures required to initiate a referendum was reduced from three months to 45 days. The number of initiative groups of 100 people was increased to a number equal to half of the subjects of the Federation. The requirements for the formulation of questions submitted to a referendum became more complicated in such a way that even the most sophisticated minds who have tried to formulate any question that satisfies them have failed.
Nevertheless, attempts to hold a referendum were made repeatedly. The communists went the farthest in 2005. They planned to put 17 issues to the vote, mostly of a socio-economic nature. However, the Central Election Commission stood in their way as a formidable wall and did not allow the expression of the will of all the people. The main argument of officials was that, according to the referendum law, it is impossible to submit questions that could lead to a revision of the state’s financial obligations. The communists went to court. The Supreme Court supported the position of the CEC, and then the initiators of the failed referendum appealed to the Constitutional Court. On March 21, 2007, the court ruled that the Central Election Commission allowed a broad interpretation of the “financial ban.” The state could be forced to revise its financial obligations by means of a referendum, if this revision did not affect the current budget. The Court also ordered Parliament to clarify the wording.50
The deputies’ response to this demand was swift and demonstrative. By April 2007, they had developed and adopted a package of amendments to the legislation, according to which it is forbidden to submit any issues related to the exclusive competence of state authorities to a referendum.51 The media quoted the Duma discussion: “It’s simply absurd for issues that are in the hands of the government and State Duma deputies to be decided in a referendum. People should not decide in a referendum on essential issues, especially financial ones.”52 Thus, referendums in Russia at the initiative of citizens were completely blocked. And not only federal, but also regional. Popular voting began to be held exclusively on initiative from above in order to legitimize changes in the federal structure or administrative-territorial division.
The result is as follows: for the period from January 1, 2016 to June 30, 2021 alone (that is, for 5.5 years), 268 applications were submitted to the election commissions of the constituent entities of the Federation for registration of initiative groups for holding regional referendums. In 2016, 59 applications were filed, in 2017, 61 applications, in 2018, 48 applications, in 2019, 51 applications, in 2020, 29 applications, and in the first half of 2021, 20 applications (data are presented based on an analysis of decisions of election commissions of constituent entities of the Russian Federation). The initiative groups were denied registration at two stages. First, at the stage of checking the application and the documents attached to it, as required by legislation, then, at the stage of checking the content of the question. At the first stage, for the period from January 1, 2016 to June 30, 2021, the initiative groups were denied 153 petitions, at the second stage, 111. And only three petitions were registered by the initiative groups. As a result, according to the results of the verification of the collected signatures, only one referendum was held, in the Volgograd region, on the issue of the transition from the second to the third time zone.53
We specifically dwell on this small segment of the transformation of the electoral legislation, because, in our opinion, it is of fundamental importance in the division of the authoritarian transition into periods. Political scientists designate the boundary separating the initial stage of the accumulation of the authoritarian potential of power from the stage of consolidation of authoritarianism, as approximately 2010–2011. However, an analysis of the legislation shows that this watershed occurred earlier, in the course of creating a legislative platform for the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2007–2008. And this border is clearly visible. Why do we think so?
The fact is that all the reforms of the previous six years were, so to speak, of a general nature. Building a centralized vertical (neutralization of the “Club of Governors”), changing the role and creating conditions for control over the personal composition of the parliament (qualified majority, accountability of the executive branch, liquidation of the discussion platform), building a certain type of party system (reducing the number of and eliminating collective competitors), gradual redistribution of powers to a narrower circle of political actors—all these measures fully fit into the definition of “seizure of power.” Yes, many of the actions were chaotic and inconsistent, which most likely indicates the absence of a serious strategy, a misunderstanding and underestimation of the logic of socio-political processes. But all of them are somehow aimed at reducing the influence of the system of checks and balances in the system of democratic institutions of power, at changing the balance of power through the redistribution of state power to a subject—the president—placed by the Constitution outside the system of separation of powers and nevertheless having significant levers of influence on each of the branches of power. In other words, the “birth injury” of the Constitution, its initial imbalance between the fundamental chapters and all other chapters potentially created such a possibility. To be honest, lawyers warned of such a threat as early as the winter of 1993. Until a certain time, the potential of the disbalance was used to a limited extent and even more or less precisely. But since 2000, it has been used to the maximum.
In addition, for the 2007 elections, the leadership of the CEC was replaced. V.E. Churov, who used to be Putin’s assistant for international activities in St. Petersburg, was named chairman. This position itself was a nomenklatura position for the KGB. It was with his arrival that falsification ceased to be considered shameful and became a matter of honor, glory, valor and heroism for every electoral worker.
As for the point of transition, we see it in the fact that from measures of a general nature (institution building), power passed to individual measures. Passive suffrage restrictions for certain categories of individuals began to be introduced. And this is understandable. Unprofessionally built on false and often momentarily justified messages, the vertical political system in a huge, complex country should have faltered by itself. But besides this, with the liquidation of collective (party) competition, individual competition would inevitably arise, since life abhors a vacuum. On a field cleared of collective actors, personalities naturally should have appeared, violating the picture of unity and cohesion around the officially proclaimed leader. And personalities are not the same as collective subjects. There may be many of them, and they are not subject to institution building. Having built its own system, the government discovered that it was imperfect and went on the defensive. In a targeted way at first. But then, as threats increased, targeted measures began to expand and eventually became comprehensive. In fact, this happens with almost all autocracies: after building their forms of government, they move on to “patching holes” and to defense, that is, to the policy of retaining power.
So, it was in 2006 that significant restrictions on passive suffrage for certain categories of people began to be introduced. Contrary to the clear and unambiguous wording of Part 3 of Article 32 of the Constitution, which determines the limiting value of restrictions on voting rights, since 2006 the right to be elected to government bodies at all levels has been denied to citizens of the Russian Federation who have citizenship in another state, or a residence permit or other document confirming the right of permanent residence in a foreign country.54 Ignoring the semantic content of a number of articles of Chapter 2 of the Basic Law of the country, the legislator in this case was guided by the simplest and most convenient logic for him—he took advantage of the right to establish by federal law removal from the rights of Russian citizens if they have citizenship of another state (Part 1 of Article 62) and throwing in for good measure residence permits. Later, such a rule became a serious constraint for citizens to occupy a variety of positions and eventually led to the mandatory notification of the state about the possession by citizens of any documents on the right to reside in the territory of other states.
Another limitation of passive suffrage was the rule on combating extremism introduced into the Law “On Basic Guarantees…” of 2002, and then into other electoral laws.55Citizens convicted of extremist crimes, subjected to administrative punishment for propaganda and public demonstration of Nazi paraphernalia and symbols (and subsequently for the production and distribution of extremist materials) or caught during the election campaign in calls for extremist activities were deprived of the right to be elected.56 The same article expanded the range of restrictions on passive suffrage associated with the commission of criminal offenses. If the Constitution of the Russian Federation establishes that persons held in places of deprivation of liberty by a court verdict are subject to such restrictions,57 now citizens sentenced to imprisonment for committing grave or especially grave crimes and having an unexpunged or outstanding conviction on election day are also deprived of the right to be elected. This norm significantly and unreasonably expands the limiting constitutional restrictions on voting rights, since a conviction for serious crimes is extinguished 6 years after serving a sentence of imprisonment, and for especially serious ones after 8 years.58
As for crimes related to extremist activity, the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation still does not contain a clear and unambiguous concept of extremism, which makes these norms “rubber” and allows them to be used at the arbitrary discretion of law enforcement agencies. And this despite the fact that the legal uncertainty of the legislator is not acceptable in general, and in particular in the definition of such important provisions as restrictions on the electoral rights of citizens. Although at first glance it may seem that for legislative activity the requirement of legal certainty is more of a technical and legal nature and is a natural legislative risk.59 After all, we are talking “only” about formulations and terms that are the creation of human hands, and people tend to make mistakes. Actually this is not true. The requirement of certainty follows from the very nature of the legal norm as an equal scale, an equal measure of freedom for all subjects, and forms “one of the fundamental aspects of the rule of law principle, is its necessary consequence and a condition for its implementation.”
So, we’re really talking about wording. But the goal of the demand for certainty is much more serious and deeper than just the perfection of texts. It lies in the fact that the law accurately fixes the requirements for the behavior of people, the scope of their possible, proper, or prohibited behavior, and describes in detail the possible (or required) options for lawful actions. Legal certainty is one of the most important general principles for the protection of human rights recognized by the Russian Constitutional Court and the European Court. This is a broad concept, the core of which is the predetermination and predictability of the conditions of activity and its legal consequences for the subjects of legal relations, and which corresponds to the responsibility of the state for failure to comply with its obligations or promises in relation to individuals (the concept of “legitimate expectations” based on the stability of legal regulation).
States bear a positive responsibility for failing to respect the principle of legal certainty. This responsibility is embodied in the void for vagueness doctrine, according to which the vagueness of a normative act entails its nullity as violating the due process clause requirement.60 Therefore, a consistent domestic and international legal appeal from Russian restrictions on passive suffrage will most likely lead to their recognition as violating the provisions of the European Convention and to imposing on the state the obligation to cancel these restrictions.61 So the state drives itself into a permanently growing chain of problems, not just an unconstitutional struggle against political competitors, but also a contradiction of domestic legislation with its own international obligations, the search for ways to fail to fulfill these obligations, amendments to the Constitution of dubious legitimacy, the curtailment of constitutional justice, and on and on… Nevertheless, the short-term task of preparing the legislative field for two series of regular elections was completed. Problems would come later. Their occurrence could and should have been foreseen, but there were no such specialist-visionaries in power.
The parliamentary and presidential elections of 2007 and 2008 were fairly standard for the established system. In March 2007, a new composition of the Central Election Commission took shape. It was headed by Vladimir Churov, who once worked under the leadership of Vladimir Putin in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office. The former head of the CEC, Alexander Veshnyakov, had a reputation as an “internal oppositionist” and repeatedly allowed himself to criticize the government’s initiatives in the field of reforming the electoral legislation. The new Central Election Commission proved to be absolutely loyal to the government: it did not launch a single complaint against United Russia, rejected any doubts about the legitimacy of the Duma elections, and stubbornly ignored the dominance of the “party of power” in the information space. “Everything’s under control. Political results of 2007”—this is how Lenta.ru titled its report on the parliamentary elections.62
Elections to the State Duma of the 5th convocation were held on December 2, 2007. The level of approval of Vladimir Putin’s work as president went off the scale: in December, according to the Levada Center, he was supported by 87% of respondents, although between the parliamentary elections the president’s approval rating dropped to 65% in January 2005. This time, Putin personally led United Russia in the elections, topping its list.
One of the main scandals of the Duma election campaign was that the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) refused to send its observers to the elections, saying that the Russian authorities first delayed sending them invitations, and then delayed issuing visas. Years later, the actions of the state to block international and domestic election observation under any pretexts have become familiar and mundane. But then it was the first time and it stood out.
Changes to the electoral legislation adopted by that time cut off many potential participants from the campaign. For the first time, all 450 deputies were elected on party lists with a threshold of 7% of the vote (this decision was made at the beginning of the 2000s, but its entry into force was postponed until 2007). The formation of electoral blocs was prohibited, the minimum threshold for voter turnout and the “against all” column were abolished. Only fifteen parties met the strict requirements of the party legislation, of which only 11 took part in the elections. In 2007, “the campaign was quite banal,” “there was no noteworthy campaigning,” and “there were practically no parties.” “The whole campaign was built on the image of Putin and trust in Putin, but, from my point of view, it was rather boring, more like a referendum on confidence in power and, perhaps, the most inconspicuous,” recalls Andrey Buzin, co-chairman of the movement “Golos” (recognized as a foreign agent).63 The campaign’s main slogan was “Putin’s plan is Russia’s victory!” Putin was everywhere, his portraits as president were even at polling stations, where it was formally forbidden to place candidates’ portraits.
But one event in this “banal” and “boring” campaign should still be noted, if only because it organically fits into the concept of the regime’s transition to the stage of consolidation and retention of power. We are talking about the president’s speech to supporters shortly before voting day, November 21, 2007. This speech can be considered a program, since it was in it that he first announced the enemies of Russia, “entrenched” both in the international arena and within the country. “Those who oppose us do not want the implementation of our plan, because they have completely different tasks and other views on Russia. They need a weak, sick state,” Vladimir Putin said. According to him, “there are those inside the country who are still feeding like jackals at foreign embassies” and “count on the support of foreign funds and governments, and not on the support of their own people.” The people who “occupied high positions in the 1990s” “led Russia to mass poverty and rampant bribery” and now “teach us how to live,” the president said, and “they want to take revenge and gradually restore the oligarchic regime.”64 In a follow-up to his famous Munich speech at the security conference in February of that year, in which he first used foreign policy rhetoric to consolidate power, he began to fight domestic opponents.
As a result, as planned, four parties entered the Duma: United Russia received a record 315 mandates (a constitutional majority), the Communist Party of the Russian Federation 57, the Liberal Democratic Party 40, and A Just Russia 38. And if in 2003 there was a campaign of hopes, where everyone could fantasize for himself what expectations he associated with Putin, by 2007 the campaign was already rigidly centralized in terms of content and clearly predictable in terms of results. “Authoritarian rulers seek to avoid the uncertainty of electoral outcomes inherent in elections in a democracy. Their dream is to reap the benefits of electoral legitimacy without exposing themselves to the risks of democratic uncertainty.”65
By 2008, on the eve of the expiration of his presidential term, Putin had chosen a loyal successor, Dmitriy Medvedev.
On December 10, 2007, the leaders of United Russia, Spravedlivaya Rossia (A Just Russia),Grazhdanskaya Sila (Civil Force) and the Agrarian Party at a meeting with Vladimir Putin announced their support for Dmitriy Medvedev as a candidate for the future president of the Russian Federation. The head of state “entirely and completely” supported this choice. In other words, Medvedev was directly named the successor. In fact, this was the long-awaited introduction of the new head of state.
On December 1, 2007, Dmitry Medvedev announced that, if elected, he would offer Vladimir Putin the post of prime minister of the Russian Federation. The risks of “castling” for Putin, who, according to the letter of the 1993 Constitution, could be dismissed by Medvedev from the post of head of government at any moment, were obvious, and a significant part of the observers were inclined to believe that they could well be realized.
Putin nevertheless accepted these risks, pinning his hopes both on the institutional leverage of the Duma majority and on the colossal superiority of his political resources. Events showed that his strategy was justified and the risk hedging strategy worked in line with his expectations.66
On December 17, 2007, at the congress of United Russia, Dmitriy Medvedev was officially nominated as a presidential candidate. And there Vladimir Putin agreed to head the government after the elections.
On March 2, 2008, Dmitriy Medvedev won the presidential election with 52.5 million votes (70.28%).
April 15, 2008 Vladimir Putin at the congress of “United Russia” accepted the proposal to head the party.
On May 7, 2008, Dmitriy Medvedev took office as president.
On May 8, by his decree, he appointed Vladimir Putin Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation.
Not a single candidate from the non-systemic opposition was admitted to the elections, and television propaganda worked for one person in full force. The usual sparring partners Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky took part in the presidential campaign. The participation of the political strategist and freemason Andrey Bogdanov ensured a carnival element. The sparring partners fulfilled their function. Gennady Zyuganov gave the elections legitimacy in the eyes of Russians by creating a sense of choice. This role was not easy for him. He had to participate in televised debates not only with Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but also with Andrey Bogdanov. The story was scandalous. Initially, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation categorically stated that the leader of the party would not debate in this format. However, very soon Zyuganov decided to take this difficult step and was rewarded with a rather high result. Zhirinovsky and Bogdanov also coped with their roles. The first one attracted part of the protest electorate, increasing the turnout at the same time, and the second demonstrated the presence in Russia of a politician striving to join the European Union.67
On March 2, Russian voters approved Dmitriy Medvedev, nominated by Vladimir Putin, as president. The result of the successor was higher than that of United Russia in the parliamentary elections in December (64.3%), but slightly lower than that of Putin in 2004 (71.31%).
The 2008 elections turned out to be even less democratic than Vladimir Putin’s reapproval for a second term in 2004, or even the first Operation Successor in 2000. To paraphrase Alexander I, that “everything will be like under his grandfather,” the successor never yielded and clearly did not intend to yield. Medvedev’s keynote speeches differed little from Putin’s pre-election speeches of the 2000 model. Based on previous experience, one could easily assume that liberal promises (to support independent media, remove obstacles to business, guarantee equality of all before the law) would certainly come true in exactly the opposite way, but strict precepts (to defend national interests in foreign policy, strengthen institutions of power from top to bottom, not to sacrifice order for the sake of freedom) would be implemented in a literal sense. And even in appearance, gestures and gait, the successor tried to resemble his predecessor.68