Russia's 'permanent' (uninterrupted) elections of 1999-2000

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 85-112

  Sakwa, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KENT   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTION; LEADERSHIP; POLITICAL PROCESS;

EID: 0033787839     PISSN: 13523279     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13523270008415442     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. Liliya Shevtsova, Rezhim Borisa Yel'tsina (Moscow: Rosspen, 1999), p. 189.
2. Alexander Shokhin argues that the search for a successor indeed began seriously at this time. The aim was to find someone who not only could sign a decree guaranteeing Yeltsin's personal security and status as 'reformer' but who could then go on to be elected president to ensure that these promises were fulfilled. Personal loyalty was thus to be buttressed by political ability: interview with Sergei Shapoval, 'Putin dolzhen vernut' foru ne konkurentam, a obshchestvu', Nezavisimaya gazeta (NG), Figury i litsa, No.1 (13 Jan. 2000), p.11.
3. Andrei Ryabov, 'Vliyanie "faktora Putina" na predvybornyi protsess', Moskovskii tsentr Karnegi, Parlamentskie vybory 1999 goda v Rossii, Byulleten' No.2 (Dec. 1999), p.5.
4. Sergei Kovalev, 'Putin's War', New York Review of Books, 10 Feb. 2000, p.6.
5. Igor' Klyamkin and Liliya Shevtsova, Vnesistemnyi rezhim Boris II: nekotorye osobennosti politicheskogo razvitiya postsovetskoi Rossii (Moscow: Carnegie Centre, 1999), p. 12.
6. See Yitzhak M. Brudny, 'In Pursuit of the Russian Presidency: Why and How Yeltsin Won the 1996 Presidential Election', Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.30, No.3 (1997), p.273.
7. This point has been challenged by, for example, by Ivan Mel'nikov, a member of the CPRF's Central Committee and representative of the incipient social democratic tendency, in an interview with the present author on 28 December 1999. Mel'nikov insisted that younger people were joining the party, and that its electoral base did not depend on the older generation alone.
8. The SPS included Gaidar's 'Russia's Democratic Choice', Kirienko's 'New Force' (Novaya sila), Nemtsov's 'Young Russia' (Molodaya Rossiya), Khakamada's 'Common Cause' (Obshche delo), Titov's 'Russia's Voice' (Golos Rossii), Konstantin Borovoi's Party of Economic Freedom, Vladimir Lysenko's Republican Party and a number of other small groups.
9. EastWest Institute, Russian Regional Report, Vol.5, No.1, 12 Jan. 2000.
10. Brian Whitmore, 'All Power to the Provinces', The Jamestown Foundation, Prism, Vol.11, No.3, 4 June 1999.
11. The Moscow Times, 14 Aug. 1998, p.9. The newspaper, incidentally, was classified as 'unfriendly', as were, notably, Kommersant and Segodnya.
12. Anne Nivat, 'His Master's Voice', Transitions, June 1998, p.47.
13. For a discussion of the issues, see Stephen White and Ian McAllister, 'Reforming the Russian Electoral System', Journal of Communist and Transition Politics, Vol.15, No.4 (Dec. 1999), pp. 17-40.
14. O vyborakh deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal'nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Federal'nyi zakon (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo PRIOR, 1999).
15. Sarah Karush, 'Kremlin Loses Control of Election Panel', Moscow Times, 25 March 1999.
16. On the concept of regime in post-communist Russian politics, see Richard Sakwa, 'The Regime System in Russia', Contemporary Politics, Vol.3, No.1 (1997), pp.7-25.
17. Catherine Cosman, 'New Orthodoxy?', RFE/RL, Newsline, 30 Dec. 1999.
18. Vitalii Tretyakov, 'Oda na 19 dekabrya: predvybornaya kampaniya - blesk bez nishchety', NG, 18 Dec. 1999, pp.1, 3.
19. Vitalii Tretyakov, 'Uroki vyborov: pobedili pragmatiki', NG, 21 Dec. 1999, pp.1, 3.
20. A useful survey of the central points of the election programmes of the main parties is by Tat'yana Krasnopevtseva, 'Predvybornye platformy osnovnykh izbiratel'nykh ob"edinenii i blokov', in Moskovskii tsentr Karnegi, Parlamentskie vybory 1999 goda v Rossii, Byulleten' No.1, Dec. 1999, pp.5-12.
21. His ideas have been developed at length in a book whose title reveals his attitude to Yeltsinite reforms, Genotsid (Genocide) (Moscow: Terra, 1998).
22. 'Bleak and Bloody Russia', The Economist, 18-24 Dec. 1999.
23. Tretyakov, 'Oda na 19 dekabrya'.
24. See Mikhail Gorshkov, 'Tol'ko KPRF, "Medved"', OVR i "Yabloko" mogut byt' spokoiny', NG, 15 Dec. 1999, p.8, for polling analysis that reveals the relatively low level of trust enjoyed by Dorenko's show at the best of times.
25. The European Institute of the Media, 'Preliminary Report on Monitoring of Media Coverage During the Parliamentary Elections in the Russian Federation in December 1999', 20 Dec. 1999, pp.2-3, mimeo; available online at 〈http://www.eim.de〉; see also Laura Belin, 'State TV Wages Unprecedented "Information War"', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No.7, 17 Dec. 1999.
26. The European Institute of the Media, 'Preliminary Report on Monitoring of Media Coverage During the Parliamentary Elections in the Russian Federation in December 1999', 20 Dec. 1999, pp.2-3, mimeo; available online at 〈http://www.eim.de〉; see also Laura Belin, 'State TV Wages Unprecedented "Information War"', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No.7, 17 Dec. 1999.
27. The European Institute of the Media, 'Preliminary Report on Monitoring of Media Coverage During the Parliamentary Elections in the Russian Federation in December 1999', 20 Dec. 1999, pp.2-3, mimeo; available online at 〈http://www.eim.de〉; see also Laura Belin, 'State TV Wages Unprecedented "Information War"', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No.7, 17 Dec. 1999.
28. Gillian McCormack, 'State Media Won Elections, But at What Cost?', The Moscow Times, 29 Dec. 1999, p.9.
29. Yulia Latynina, 'Weary Nation Lurks Behind Duma Results', The Moscow Times, 22 Dec. 1999, p.8.
30. Putin's supporters were the most varied, 26 per cent of them planning to vote for Unity, and another five roughly equal groups (5-7 per cent) for the SPS, the KPRF, the OVR. Yabloko and the Women of Russia. The supporters of Primakov were vacillating, too: only 48 per cent of them would vote for the OVR, while 14 per cent supported the CPRF; another three equal groups (4 per cent) would vote for Unity, Yabloko and the Women of Russia, with another 17 per cent undecided. Luzhkov's supporters made up a similar picture. The electorate of Zyuganov was much more decided: nearly 90 per cent of them would vote for the CPRF and only 7 per cent were undecided. The electorate of Yavlinskii was rather consistent, with 80 per cent of them planning to vote for Yabloko. See Mikhail Gorshkov, 'Tol'ko KPRF, "Medved"', OVR i "Yabloko" mogut byt' spokoiny'.
31. RFE/RL, Newsline, 20 Dec. 1999.
32. Ol'ga Tropkina, 'Veshnyakov ne verit v massovye fal'sifikatsii na vyborakh', NG, 28 Dec. 1999, pp.1, 3.
33. Novye izvestiya, 22 Dec. 1999; RFE/RL, Newsline, 22 Dec. 1999.
34. Novye izvestiya, 22 Dec. 1999; RFE/RL, Newsline, 22 Dec. 1999.
35. Jamestown Foundation, Monitor: Weekly Fax Bulletin, Vol.IV, Issue 48 (17 Dec. 1999).
36. NG, 20 Dec. 1999.
37. Andrei Korbut, 'Armiya progolosovala za "partiyu vlasti"', NG, 25 Dec. 1999, p.3.
38. Vladimir Lukin talked in terms of 'an archaic, weak electoral campaign'. As for the Chechen factor, he argued that it was not so much what Yabloko said, but the 'incompetent and unqualified way' in which Yabloko put forward its critique: see Dmitrii Chernogorskii, 'Lukin o prichinakh neudach "Yazbloko"', NG, 24 Dec. 1999, p.3.
39. RFE/RL, Newsline, 18 Jan. 1999; Tropkina, 'Veshnyakov ne verit v massovye fal'sifikatsii na vyborakh', p.3, gave a slightly higher figure of 175. According to Izvestiya, 24 Dec. 1999, p.2, 91 SMD deputies in the new Duma had served in the previous assembly (40 per cent) and 66 party-list deputies (29 per cent).
40. RFE/RL, Newsline, 18 Jan. 1999; Tropkina, 'Veshnyakov ne verit v massovye fal'sifikatsii na vyborakh', p.3, gave a slightly higher figure of 175. According to Izvestiya, 24 Dec. 1999, p.2, 91 SMD deputies in the new Duma had served in the previous assembly (40 per cent) and 66 party-list deputies (29 per cent).
41. RFE/RL, Newsline, 18 Jan. 1999; Tropkina, 'Veshnyakov ne verit v massovye fal'sifikatsii na vyborakh', p.3, gave a slightly higher figure of 175. According to Izvestiya, 24 Dec. 1999, p.2, 91 SMD deputies in the new Duma had served in the previous assembly (40 per cent) and 66 party-list deputies (29 per cent).
42. EastWest Institute, Russian Regional Report, Vol.4, No.48, 22 Dec. 1999.
43. Yulia Latynina, 'Weary Nation Lurks Behind Duma Results'.
44. Viktor Sheinis, 'Posle bitvy: itogi parlamentskikh vyborov i novaya Gosudarstvennaya Duma', NG, 29 Dec. 1999, p.8.
45. RFE/RL, Newsline, 20 Dec. 1999.
46. Sheinis, 'Posle bitvy'.
47. Ibid.
48. Alexander Tsipko, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 18 Dec. 1999; reproduced in Johnson's Russia List, No. 3693/8.
49. Laura Belin, 'Early Presidential Election Secures Duma Majority for Putin', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No. 8, 7 Jan. 2000.
50. EastWest Institute, Russian Regional Report, Vol.4, No.48, 22 Dec. 1999.
51. RFE/RL, Newsline, 18 Jan. 2000.
52. For example, Izvestiya, 21 Dec. 1999, cited in Laura Belin, 'Communist Party Consolidates its Position on the Left', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No.8, 7 Jan. 2000.
53. For example, Izvestiya, 21 Dec. 1999, cited in Laura Belin, 'Communist Party Consolidates its Position on the Left', RFE/RL, Russian Election Report, No.8, 7 Jan. 2000.
54. This is the conclusion, based on a rich empirical investigation, by Steven Solnick, 'Russia's Asymmetric Federation: Are All Differences Alike?', ESRC Research Seminar, Russia's Regional Transformation, LSE, 31 Jan. 2000. The argument will be taken further in a forthcoming book by the same author.
55. RFE/RL, Newsline, 30 Dec. 1999.
56. For example, Andrei Miroshnichenko, 'Kremlin Gaining Power over Governors', EastWest Institute, Russian Regional Report, Vol.5, No.4 (2 Feb. 2000).
57. Klyamkin and Shevtsova, Vnesistemnyi rezhim Boris II, p. 11.
58. For a critical comparative analysis of elections in the Commonwealth of Independent States, see Adzhar Kurtov, 'Avtoritarnaya modernizatsiya: Demokratiya vyborov v stranakh SNG', NG, 26 Jan. 2000, pp.9, 12.
59. This is argued in Alexander Shokhin, 'Putin dolzhen vernut' foru ne konkurentam, a obshchestvu'.