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Part II. Elections and Parliament. Chapter 1. Parliament—Parliamentarism—Elections

Published onFeb 22, 2024
Part II. Elections and Parliament. Chapter 1. Parliament—Parliamentarism—Elections

The tasks of ensuring special representation corresponding to the goals of a certain political regime have always been solved with the help of electoral legislation or the creation of special electoral practices. The composition of the parliament, formed according to various rules, will take into account the will of citizens to a greater or lesser extent and will ensure a level of representation that corresponds to the goals and objectives of the authorities. To what extent the resulting parliament will be based on the authority of the society that elected it, and to what extent the election results will be programmed can all be predetermined by the electoral legislation. Thus, on the basis of a study of the transformation of the electoral systems of individual countries, conclusions can be drawn not only about their very state, but also about the forecasts for the effectiveness of the functioning of the parliaments formed on their basis. And vice versa—one of the main indicators of what the electoral legislation will be like or in what directions its transformation will take place is the true purpose of the parliament and its place in the system of separation of powers.

Over the past 20 years, three processes have been observed simultaneously in Russia: an intensive permanent transformation of the electoral legislation, a steady gradual decrease in the electoral activity of citizens and an increase in dissatisfaction with the parliament, with a simultaneous external intensification of the activity of the highest representative body of power, accompanied by a decrease in the quality of laws. A priori, there is a dependence among all three processes is felt. However, a feeling is not proof. To correct the current situation, at least a systemic analysis and an attempt to identify the relationship and interdependence are needed.

Parliament and elections

From the very first lines of this book, we say that the main goal of free and fair elections is the formation of an authorized body that, on behalf of the population, adopts generally binding rules of conduct and is a counterbalance (controller) to the executive branch. But if in liberal democracies elections work as a tool for changing power, and reflect changing public interests, then controlled elections in authoritarian conditions serve to preserve the status quo, helping rulers stay in power1 through artificially formed parliaments that obediently change the rules of the game to suit the needs of autocrats. Keeping the incumbents in power is a priority goal and is achieved at any cost.

It is the electoral system, embodied in the electoral legislation, that largely determines the role, place and significance of the parliament in the system of democratic constitutionalism. One of the main criteria of this system is “an institutional arrangement for making political decisions in which individuals acquire power through competition for votes.”2 K. Popper wrote that “in a democracy, the people can remove the government without bloodshed. Thus, if those in power do not guard the social institutions that enable the minority to effect peaceful change, then their rule is tyranny.”3 These statements in relation to the electoral law are analyzed in detail by M.A. Krasnov in his article “The voter as an official position.”4

Despite the French origin of the word “parliament,” medieval England is considered to be its homeland, where in the 13th century, against the backdrop of economic difficulties and the weakening of the king’s power, parliament arose as a body of estate representation, which included large feudal lords, representatives of counties and cities, and also the higher clergy. These estates constituted the social base of the supreme state power—the power of the monarch—and quantitatively were in a significant minority.

Initially, the main task of the parliament was to limit the absolute power of the monarch to resolve the most painful issues for the estates represented in it: taxation, disposition of the treasury, and the declaration of war. All these issues, which were initially only special cases of the participation of estates in lawmaking, nevertheless laid the foundation for the main legislative function of parliament. Subsequently, the range of legislative problems that required the participation of Parliament only expanded until it eventually became practically unlimited.

In addition to the right to participate in the publication of laws, a right shared with the king, for the first century of its existence, the English parliament secured for itself another important authority, which forms the basis of parliamentarism to this day—the right to exercise control over the highest officials of the state. Including to act as a quasi-judicial body in the framework of the impeachment procedure.5

Even in the heyday of absolutism in England in the 14th and 15th centuries, parliament was not abolished. And although its role was significantly reduced, the function of control over the establishment of taxes was preserved. It is from there that the main principle of tax law originates—“no taxes without representation.” Omitting the details of the long confrontation between parliament and the monarch in the 16th-17th centuries, which are insignificant for the purposes of this study, it should be noted that it resulted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which finally defined the English state as a constitutional monarchy. The Bill of Rights, issued in 1689, finally secured the limitation of royal power to the power of Parliament. Under the provisions of the Bill of Rights, it was illegal to suspend laws or their enforcement and collect taxes and fees in favor of the Crown, unless such actions were consented to by Parliament.6 At the same time, the joint participation of both Parliament and the King in the legislative process was finally established: “Everything that is pleasing to Their Majesties and to which they have agreed, must be declared, legalized and established by the authority of this Parliament and must act, remain in force and remain the law of this Kingdom for all time.”7 The law, therefore, could not be adopted without the participation of parliament, although its adoption required the consent of the monarch.

Similar models of parliament became widespread in a number of other countries: in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and Hungary.8 And approximately in such a conceptual modification, the parliament has existed to this day. It retained unconditional priority in the field of lawmaking, broad powers to control top officials and reliance on a social base in the form of population groups that participated in the formation of a representative body. Of course, over time and as the number of states with a monarchical form of government shrank, the legislative powers of the parliament were expanded. Up to the point when its participation in lawmaking became not just one of the conditions, but the only form of passing laws. The head of state has only the right to sign or veto them. In parallel, there was a process of consistent expansion of the social base of the parliament, which ended with the inclusion of all adult citizens in this base.

In other words, the parliament arose as a tool to limit the power of the monarch in certain issues that were most sensitive to the estates that formed the social base of power. The method of restriction was the involvement of representatives of estates in the process of adopting laws. In addition to the legislative function, the parliament assumed the function of controlling the activities of the executive branch as a whole.

Simultaneously with the gradual weakening of the ruling classes, there was a quantitative and qualitative growth of the bourgeoisie, which claimed its rights to participate in the adoption of state-power decisions and claimed the role of a new social support of power. It was from here that the need arose to change the ways of forming the parliament— the transition from estate representation to territorial representation and finally to nationwide representation. So gradually the parliament was transformed into a body of people’s representation. The main essential content of the parliament is its representative character. It is that which allows this body, which is a kind of scaled-down model of society at a certain stage of its development, to provide an acceptable peaceful consolidated coordination of interests when making government decisions. The representative character is precisely the evolutionary revealed purpose of parliament, without which it loses its original meaning and ceases to fulfill its functions.

But the parliament is not just a collective body of representing the people, it is an irreplaceable balancing institution in the system of separation of powers, ensuring a fine alignment of the interests of the state and society. Moreover, as the social base of power expands, the role and importance of the parliament increases, as it becomes the spokesman for the interests of an ever wider range of people. And then the theory of parliamentarism takes the place of the theory of representative government.9

Parliamentarism—Parliament—Elections

Parliamentarism is no longer just a government based on a more or less reliable representation of the interests of the population in the adoption of state-power decisions. It is a special system of state management of society, which is characterized by the division of labor between the legislative and executive branches of power with a privileged position for parliament. Such a privileged position of the parliament is ensured by the procedure for its formation and the presence of special protected rights on a certain range of issues.

Therefore, the most important foundations of modern parliamentarism are free and fair elections, together with a reasonable functional delimitation of powers between the branches of government in the presence of a mutual system of checks and balances. Naturally, both of these “pillars” on which parliamentarism stands are closely interconnected and interdependent. But nevertheless, the primary determining role in the process of forming an authoritative parliament with the proper level of popular representation is played by the procedure for organizing and conducting elections (the electoral system), formalized in the electoral legislation. It is the electoral legislation that determines the circle of participants, the rules of the election campaign and the procedure for transforming the will of voters into a concrete result, namely the personal composition of parliament. That is, we are talking about the conditions for citizens’ access to participation in the management of state affairs. The freer and fairer these conditions are, the more authoritative will be the decisions of the parliament and the public’s trust in it, since the reliability of the election results gives rise to mutual responsibility to each other of the voters and the elected. And vice versa, the less free and fair the elections are, the further the composition of the parliament is from public expectations, the lower the confidence in its decisions and their acceptance by the subjects of legal relations will be. As a result, a decrease in confidence in the parliament can be transformed into alienation of the population from the state and the emergence of tension.

Parliamentarism cannot exist without parliament. A strong, authoritative and sovereign parliament is its foundation. But a parliament can exist without parliamentarism, because the quality of parliamentarism—the highest quality of a real parliament—can be lost by it. A weak or dependent parliament cannot fully exercise its functions in such a way as to ensure the full-fledged existence of the system of parliamentarism. Then it truly becomes a parliament of a completely different kind—a relatively representative institution that performs legislative functions.

It is even more dangerous when a certain body called parliament actually becomes its complete simulacrum notwithstanding the constitutionally embodied principle of separation of powers and other democratic institutions. Unfortunately, this situation is typical for many post-socialist countries that proclaimed the democratic foundations of their development, but did not have time to adapt to the true content and meaning of democratic processes. These countries strive to demonstrate adherence to democratic values and principles while implementing in practice completely different state-power practices. Today, political scientists are actively discussing the question of what kind of political regimes such systems belong to, calling them hybrid or pseudo-democratic.10 However, hardly anyone doubts that such regimes are not truly democratic.

Real democratic political regimes in the conditions of a republican form of government or a limited monarchy of the modern type need parliamentarism. Such countries are aimed at forming the most representative parliaments to take into account the current opinion of society in the development of generally binding rules of conduct. Conflict-free interaction between the authorities and society, as well as high efficiency of law enforcement, are possible only if consensus is reached in the adoption and implementation of generally binding rules of conduct. Under the conditions of consensus, it is beneficial and easy for the state to assume and implement the obligation of self-restraint and the transparency of its institutions.

However, a number of states that in the last decade of the 20th century simultaneously adopted and institutionalized the entire set of democratic electoral principles and standards accumulated and achieved through great effort by other countries began to reverse their interpretation and practical application in order to erode popular representation and monopolize individual power.

Of course, the basis of parliamentarism is not only elections. The loss of the qualities of parliamentarism by the parliament depends not only on elections. The division of powers between the legislative and executive powers also plays a huge role in determining the place and role of the parliament. Nevertheless, the procedure for the formation of representative bodies (the electoral system as the implementation of the rules established by the electoral legislation) remains one of the most important factors determining parliament’s significance and effectiveness of functioning. Therefore, the real goals of pseudo-democratic regimes, aimed at strengthening the executive power to the detriment of the representative, as a rule, are achieved precisely through the ongoing permanent transformation of electoral laws. That is, without clearly visible coups. This gradual transformation is outwardly not as noticeable as explicit constitutional amendments, but at the same time, with its help, the desired result can be quite successfully achieved—to deprive the parliament of the qualities of parliamentarism, turning it into an obedient appendage of the executive branch or into a simulacrum of a representative body.

The process of consistent democratization of suffrage in the world and understanding of its criteria were long and difficult. This process was different in different countries. It was accompanied by ups and downs, even by a certain withering of parliamentarism and a decrease in the role of representative institutions. But as progressive electoral practices accumulated, the situation began to level off—parliaments formed according to new standards gradually began to regain their lost positions (France, Finland, the USA, Israel).11 In any case, the fact that the effectiveness of parliamentary systems depends on the quality of electoral legislation today can be considered proven.

The formula that was developed as a result of this long journey is fixed in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It sounds like this: “free elections held at reasonable intervals by secret ballot under such conditions as to ensure the free expression of the will of the people in the choice of legislative bodies.”12 Actually, it’s not just a phrase. These are the conditions for the formation of the most representative parliament, consisting of rather rigid principles and standards determined by special inter-governmental bodies.13 These standards contain the requirements that electoral legislation and electoral practices must comply with in order to ensure the freedom and fairness of elections of representative bodies of power. Therefore, the electoral process and the electoral system applied in the state, which should be based on international electoral standards, can no longer be considered the prerogative of national legislation alone. Given a constantly integrating world, the state cannot ignore universal values and the experience accumulated by other states and inter-governmental associations.

The political regime and parliament

Depending on the political regimes (and the methods of achieving the true goals of power), parliaments or those bodies that we may conditionally call parliaments differ. In democratic political regimes, they have an unequal, but in any case wide range of powers. In non-democratic political regimes, representative organs are most often puppets, simulacra, or non-existent.14 The circle of their official or real powers is narrowed. In particular, in personalist regimes, the leader is forced to constantly weaken the representative institutions of power because of the fear of creating strong competitors for himself, capable of limiting his power.15

To create a puppet body or a simulacrum parliament, there is no point in having a democratic electoral system. More precisely, a puppet parliament cannot be formed through democratic elections. And vice versa, it is impossible to create a parliament that meets the requirements of parliamentarism by all criteria through non-free and non-competitive elections.

When determining the functional purpose of parliaments and, accordingly, the main parameters of electoral systems, the political regime is primary in comparison with the form of government. Within the same form of government, different electoral systems and completely different electoral legislation are possible. The clearest example of this is the RSFSR-USSR at various stages of its statehood. Thus, the Soviet republican form of government under the conditions of the political regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat (1918–1936) assumed a definite composition of representative bodies of power. That composition required the complete exclusion from participation in the elections of all “exploiters” (persons using hired labor), the clergy, officers of the tsarist army and members of the imperial court, as well as the unequal representation of the peasantry in comparison with the workers in the Soviets.

Under the conditions of the republic of working people (1936–1988), only working citizens were allowed to participate in the adoption of state-power decisions (endowed with passive suffrage). Therefore, candidates for deputies of the Soviets could be nominated exclusively by labor collectives. All other legislative restrictions on voting rights were abolished. But under the constitutionally established authoritarian regime16 of the leading and guiding role of the CPSU, the highest representative body of power—the Supreme Soviet of the USSR—could only be a puppet, artificially formed legislative body that met twice a year at its solemn-ceremonial meetings to approve already adopted decisions (decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet) or a formal vote, without discussion, for fully drafted laws. Therefore, with all the external electoral freedom during this period, there were no real elections in the country. The nomination of candidates took place according to an order from above according to the approved norms of representation (age, gender, profession, education, nationality, party membership), and the voting itself was uncontested. That is why in dictionaries and textbooks the Supreme Soviet was not called parliament, and parliamentarism and the separation of powers were denied as bourgeois teachings and were replaced by the theory of “Soviets—working corporations.”

But as soon as the goals and objectives of the authorities shifted towards the democratization of the political system and the change of the political regime, the situation changed dramatically. Under the same form of government, the electoral system was immediately reformed, free alternative elections were held, and the highest representative body of power was elected, which was associated only in name with the former Supreme Soviet, but at the same time met the basic characteristics of parliamentarism. It was called the parliament with glass walls, since all its meetings, discussions and voting were transparent and accessible to the entire population of the country.

Just as the reverse change in the goals and objectives of power from democracy to authoritarianism at the beginning of the new millennium within the framework of the same democratic Constitution entailed an entire chain of authoritarian actions and results—from the consistent restriction of political competition through the transformation of electoral legislation to the formation of a non-representative dependent body, not capable of exercising parliamentary functions, but remaining a parliament in name. As already mentioned, autocrats cannot win fair elections, since their interests are at odds with the public. On the other hand, controlled elections are an effective tool for co-opting opposition or pseudo-opposition forces into controlled legislatures. They provide a forum to which access is controlled, where opposition demands do not escalate into acts of opposition to the regime, where compromises are worked out without undue public scrutiny, and where agreements reached will be presented wrapped in legal form.

“Feed and rule” is the formula for autocracy. It was on these principles that the Soviet nomenklatura existed in conditions of total shortages and an overall extremely low quality of services. It had a special access to goods, determined by the level of its loyalty and its place in the hierarchy.17 This is called the co-optation of elites to stabilize the political regime. Elite co-optation involves the incorporation of lower-level elites or potential rivals into a privileged class. At the same time, the creation of co-opted institutions makes it possible to split up the opposition. It is believed that the more successfully a regime is able to co-opt elites, the more likely it is to exist for a longer period of time. The more the “rules of the game” that form the basis of a political regime allow co-opting lower-level elites and potential rivals to the ruling group, the more one can speak of its ability to maintain stability and repel challenges. Management of co-opted elites is often handed over to the dominant party.

Legislatures are ideal for co-optation. The ruler can choose the groups that will be given access to the flow of information about the implementation of the relevant agreements and control over them to build the basis of loyalty to the regime. For example, King Hussein of Jordan invited the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamic group, to influence educational and social policy in exchange for cooperation with the regime. Polish communists have repeatedly spoken out in favor of the participation of certain Catholic groups in political life. Thus, in 1990, the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ (Communist) Party, Edward Gierek, said in an interview that he was forced to give seats in the Sejm to a significant group of Catholic deputies in the amount of 25%. This allowed us, Gierek continued, to “expand the political base of power.”18

The direct transfer of wealth and privileges by the dictator to his supporters and the creation of limited “court” bodies of state power are ineffective means for establishing a reliable and long-term contract between the ruler and the elites. Both sides have opportunities and incentives to break it. The power of a dictator will not be limited by the institutions he himself created and staffed. And it is more profitable for members of the ruling elite to take the place of a dictator than to exist at the expense of his handouts, which, moreover, he can take away at any moment.

The institution of regular elections is a tool for providing this access according to certain and understandable rules and a guarantee that control is transferred to the ruling party for a long period of time. Access to national authorities is more valuable than access to an advisory board under a dictator: the privileges are higher, but the danger of losing them is less. Of course, the dictator will still have the ability to remove a dangerous politician, but to repeat such actions too often would be a dangerous breach of contract with the elites already united in a powerful organization. The institution of elections as a set of established rules will attract new politicians to the ranks of the ruling party who want to achieve higher positions over time. As long as the ruling party retains a monopoly on the distribution of power positions, ordinary politicians have a powerful incentive to serve it, and the loyalty of the party elite is maintained by the existence of institutionalized inheritance of leadership provided by the same electoral institutions.19

Parliament—Elections—Quality of laws

A parliament that is not quite representative, and even more so a parliament consisting of persons who are to a certain degree dependent on theexecutive branch, is not able to fully comprehend and formulate the public demand in its decisions. A parliament not formed on the principle of selecting the best is even less able to do this. A parliament in which there is no discussion due to the lack of political competition runs the risk of making decisions that are not fully thought out and not well designed. The presence of all three factors in one parliament at the same time is a huge risk and the reason for the total decline in the quality of laws.

And this is natural. The interdependence of the processes of parliament formation and the results of its activities interestsscholars all over the world. Even more than half a century ago, Oxford professor Carleton Kemp Allen wrote about this: “Legislative activity is a characteristic law-making tool of modern societies, expressing the relationship between the individual and the state. It is not, however, a relationship that takes the form of an order from a superior to a subordinate. It is a process of action and interaction between constitutionally organized initiative and social forces.” Consequently, legislation is the result of the interaction of various social forces on a constitutional basis. If the body responsible for the legislative process is not formed properly, then the normal process of such interaction is impossible, and the legislative result will not be adequate and reliable.20

The position of C. K. Allen is also confirmed by modern researchers. British political economist Abby Innes draws a clear conclusion: “After the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe to the EU, the systematic attempts to roll back democracy have succeeded only where, for political and economic reasons, it has so far failed to create effective representation: in Hungary.”21 It has to be this way. The parliamentary form of government is the main barrier to the restoration of authoritarianism in post-socialist countries. Even with mixed and presidential forms of government, the parliament plays a huge role in any constitutional transformations that lead to a change in the political regime. It is impossible to carry out such transformations without a parliament. And therefore, the first and main target of the elites, whose goal is to create a mechanism for the irremovability of power, is precisely the parliament and the procedure for its formation.

A parliament in which one of the factions numerically prevails over all the others will naturally strive to reduce parliamentary procedures and simplify the stages of the legislative process, although it is precisely the legislative procedures that are an additional filter specially developed by mankind, guaranteeing the adopted laws from errors, defects and conflicts. Even the speed of passing a bill affects its quality—the longer the legislative procedure, the more active the public discussion, the more feedback and comments it receives from future subjects of legal relations, and the higher the quality of the final document emerging from the parliamentary walls.

The circulatory system of lawmaking is competition, and monopoly is a stroke. Therefore, the electoral legislation should be structured in such a way as to prevent the formation of a stable majority in parliament. Any faction that has a 50% plus one vote package is a killer of parliamentarism. Parliament should be pluralistic and consist of many factions and groups that will enter into coalitions among themselves and force the executive branch to complex negotiation processes.22

With an artificially formed majority in parliament, any discussion is extremely unlikely. The faction with the majority does not need anyone to make decisions—it can easily block any initiatives and objections. But we must not forget that the government, formulating the goals and objectives of the state itself, in its narrow circle, is at great risk. Under the conditions of the functioning of a pocket parliament, the risk of discrepancy between the goals of power and the interests of society is very high. This, in turn, with a high degree of probability implies the vulnerability and unfeasibility of its decisions.

If the procedure for forming a parliament does not provide it with the necessary representative qualities, this directly affects the quality of its performance of its functions and the results of its activities. In addition, an artificially created dependent parliament deliberately transforms its electoral legislation in such a way that the representative body formed would not be able to normally perform parliamentary functions, but would be a weak-willed appendage of executive power and an inarticulate expression of its will.

The dynamics of the development of modern Russian electoral legislation testify to a situation in which a decline in the functional qualities of the Russian parliament is inevitable. For example, the 1999 elections have a higher representativeness index than the 1995 elections, and by 2007 this index is falling again. This trend testifies to the multidirectional goals of the transformation of the electoral legislation in the 90s and after 2002.23 According to the results of the elections of the State Duma of the 7th convocation, the approximate total distortion of the parliament’s representativeness was 22%.

Only 12% of Russians surveyed believe that Russia does not need new parliamentary parties. This is much less than the figures for voting for systemic parties in elections. Even taking into account all the cheating and stuffing, the percentage of opponents is radically less than the percentage of supporters. According to the latest Public Opinion Foundation (Russ. abbr. FOM) poll, a total of 63% of respondents expressed their readiness to vote for the four systemic parties. This last figure should not be taken at face value either—we do not know how much the often discussed factors of refusing to answer, demonstrating loyalty, following the majority, etc. increase the rating of the ruling party. Nevertheless, the difference of more than five times speaks for itself. Many of those who are ready to vote in conditions of absence of choice and even actually reach the polling stations nonetheless feel unrepresented. And many of the sincere supporters of one or another systemic party feel the situation when the views and interests of the majority of fellow citizens are not represented in the political spectrum as some kind of disorder.

In the “systemic” political spectrum, there is neither a liberal party (according to the poll, 34% of voters consider it missing), nor a nationalist one (18%), nor one representing the views of Orthodox fundamentalists, habitually disguised as supporters of “traditional values” (10%).

In an ideological sense, the voter is given a choice between simple loyalty to the current government, which is expressed by voting for United Russia, and nostalgia for the USSR, and adherence to the Soviet tradition, which can be expressed by ticking the Communist Party of the Russian Federation—the only one, we must give it its due, of the systemic parties that has preserved one way or another at least some independent ideological face. In terms of representing the interests of social groups, the beneficiaries of oil authoritarianism are represented, from security officials to defense plant workers, and, relatively speaking, pensioners. All others are not represented; in fact, the entire active part of society: up-to-date citizens demanding freedom and respect for the individual, working poor demanding for decent wages and human working conditions, private business demanding deregulation and a favorable economic climate, young families who are in an even worse situation than the elderly, but not receiving even half of their support and attention to their problems. This list can be continued.

That is, about 60% of the political preferences of citizens are not represented in the body whose main task is to represent the population.24 Instead, the majority is artificially provided in parliament by way of certain political forces—passive-loyal or active supporters of the right of an authoritarian type as the will of the ruling class elevated into law, that is, adherents of legal regulation on the principle of “accepted, so please execute.” This principle works in the context of the reduction of modern requirements for law and the distortion of its constitutional (Article 18 of the Constitution) purpose. Instead of a measure of justice and protection of human rights, completely different criteria are applied to the content of legal norms—compliance with the interests of the autocratic group in power. Accordingly, the quality of the adopted laws will be assessed in terms of precisely these criteria, and not in terms of the requirements for legal norms in accordance with the international obligations of the state. From this point of view, from the standpoint of the rule of law, the quality of lawmaking will naturally decline to the level when laws cease to have a legal character. And vice versa, from the standpoint of the interests of the regime, the quality of mandatory regulations will become higher, but such regulations have nothing to do with law, but are in the nature of state arbitrariness.

The Importance of the Personal Composition of Parliament

Based on the generally accepted and scientifically substantiated properties of the parliament, which are necessary for the performance of its functions (the control function, the legislative and representative functions), it is assumed that the effectiveness of its activities directly depends on the personal composition. The personal composition that would ensure the effective performance of the parliament’s functions, in turn, depends on the method and procedure for the formation of the parliament. The tasks of ensuring special representation corresponding to a certain social base of power and the goals of a certain political regime have always been and are being solved with the help of electoral legislation or the creation of special electoral practices.

The personal composition of the parliament should certainly not be underestimated.. Deputies elected not on the basis of the “best of the best,” who did not participate in tough competition but received their mandates through artificial selection, have insufficient motivation to make high-quality parliamentary decisions. For them, when voting for a bill, the determining factor, most likely, will not be the search for a single exact formula for the adopted rule, but the opinion of those with whose help they received a deputy seat. This is a simple human factor. It is on this principle that the authors of electoral transformations carried out in order to achieve certain political goals rely. But the same factor, returning like a boomerang, strikes at the prestige and quality of the work of the parliament.

An attempt was made to correct the situation of total “non-representation” manually. Indeed, the personal and social composition of the State Duma has undergone some changes during the last convocations. The number of “professional politicians” and representatives of business, both federal and large regional, has decreased in it (although these two groups still remain the largest in the deputy corps). The size of the group designated in the tables as “others” and including partly random people who were included in the lists mainly along the lines of the All-Russian Popular Front to demonstrate “social diversity” has decreased by a factor of three. The number of “state employees” and trade unionists has sharply increased. The number of former heads of municipalities increased several times, especially among deputies elected in majoritarian districts. The number of former speakers of regional parliaments has almost tripled, and the representation of the regional nomenklatura has also increased. The number of representatives of the media business, journalists, and astronauts has doubled, and even a rather large group of athletes and sports officials has expanded. The proportion of representatives of regional elites has increased, including from governors’ teams.25

However, the artificial adjustment did not give much effect. The increase in the share of “state employees” among deputies was the result of a long-term limitation of political competition, due to the interest of the authorities, including regional ones, in the formation of a manageable deputy corps through “budget-dependent” candidates. As a result, an analysis of the composition of the State Duma of the 7th convocation showed that the real diversity of interests again turned out to be concentrated within the United Russia faction. The composition of the factions of other parties (largely due to the general decrease in the number of “listed” seats), in fact, narrowed down to a simple formula, “party nomenklatura plus individual representatives of large regional businesses.” It is obvious that no improvement in the representative character of Parliament has taken place. Technically, the reform only led to another increase in the representation of United Russia and to the formation of a mega faction of 343 deputies, which had to be divided not into four, as in the previous two convocations, but into five deputy groups—in order to mask this Central Asian effect of an absolute majority, formed from “overdried” turnout (i.e., greatly lowered by administrative methods) turnout and intense electoral creativity of individual regions that have achieved an increase in their representation. Even the posts in the presidium of the Duma and in its committees were distributed as if the former fractional proportion of the 6th convocation was preserved, where United Russia did not have a constitutional majority.

The long-term artificial formation of the personal composition of the parliament, achieved through a special transformation of the electoral legislation in accordance with personal loyalty and the creation of conditions for the smooth implementation of any plans of the executive (presidential) power, sooner or later inevitably led to the principle of kakistocracy—power of the worst ones. Any bright and strong personality cannot be weakly dependent and silently obedient. But it is precisely such individuals that a priori cannot satisfy the requirements of such a request. If they accidentally penetrate the sieve of artificial selection, then over time they get rid of them by any means, by transforming legislation, by intra-parliamentary procedures for this task, or by creating special administrative practices. The cells of the preliminary selection are getting smaller and smaller.

As a result, the state of the personal composition of the parliament in Russia was quite accurately described by the Chairman of the State Duma VyacheslavVolodin, the former deputy head of the Presidential Administration and co-author of a significant part of the electoral reforms of the last decade: “After the parties were formed, party brands began to compete, not personalities. Filling party lists with authoritative people has already become secondary. This is very bad, because the quality of representation in the Duma began to decline.”26 True, Volodin was slightly cunning—the number of parties admitted to elections for 10 years was strictly and unreasonably limited by the state. The removal of real opposition political forces from the pre-election struggle was precisely one of the most important elements in the transformation of the electoral legislation. Naturally, in the absence of political competition, the parties that remained in the political field ceased to care about the quality of the personal selection of candidates. As a result, the 6thState Duma became a parliament with one of the lowest ratings and the saddest legislative result of its work.

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