The village votes: The December 1999 elections in Tatarstan's Pestretsy district

Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 113-122

  Löwenhardt, John ^a   Verheul, Ruben ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

^b LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY; LEGISLATION; RURAL POLITICS; VOTING BEHAVIOR;

RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 0343878093     PISSN: 13523279     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13523270008415443     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. RFE/RL Newsline, 23 Dec. 1999.
2. Izvestiya, 22 Dec. 1999.
3. Siraev at press conference, 22 Dec. 1999, taped by the first author. The previous evening the newspaper Vechernyaya Kazan' had announced that the results as sent to the TsIK in Moscow had been 48.6 per cent for OVR, 15.3 per cent for Unity and 14.1 per cent for the KPRF.
4. John Löwenhardt, 'The 1996 Presidential Elections in Tatarstan', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics. Vol. 13, No. 1 (1997), pp.132-44.
5. Federal'nyi zakon No. 124-FZ Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel'nykh prav i prava na uchastie v referendume grazhdan RF, 19 September 1997, Sobranie zakonodatel'stva RF 38 (1997) item 4339; amended by Federal'nyi zakon No. 55-FZ O vnesenii izmenenii i dopolnenii v Federal'nyi zakon 'Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel'nykh prav i prava na uchastie v referendume grazhdan RF', 30 March 1999, Sobranie zakonodatel'stva RF 14 (1999) item 1653; hereinafter 'Federal Guarantees Law'.
6. Federal'nyi zakon No. 124-FZ Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel'nykh prav i prava na uchastie v referendume grazhdan RF, 19 September 1997, Sobranie zakonodatel'stva RF 38 (1997) item 4339; amended by Federal'nyi zakon No. 55-FZ O vnesenii izmenenii i dopolnenii v Federal'nyi zakon 'Ob osnovnykh garantiyakh izbiratel'nykh prav i prava na uchastie v referendume grazhdan RF', 30 March 1999, Sobranie zakonodatel'stva RF 14 (1999) item 1653; hereinafter 'Federal Guarantees Law'.
7. Federal'nyi zakon No. 121-FZ O vyborakh deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy Federal'nogo Sobraniya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 24 June 1999, Rossiiskaia gazeta, 1 and 3 July 1999; hereinafter 'Duma Election Law'.
8. Tsentral'naya izbiratel'naya kommissiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Rabochii bloknol chlena uchastkovoi izbiratel'noi kommissii (Moscow, 1999).
9. Zakon Respubliki Tatarstan No. 2244-xii O vyborakh narodnykh deputatov Respubliki Tatarstan, 29 Nov. 1994, as amended 21 July 1999, Izbiratel' Tatarstana (journal of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Tatarstan), special issue, 1999; hereinafter 'Gossovet Election Law'.
10. Zakon Respubliki Tatarstan No. 2248-xii O vyborakh narodnykh deputatov mestnykh sovetov narodnykh deputatov Respubliki Tatarstan, 30 Nov. 1994, as amended 21 July 1999, Izbiratel' Tatarstana, special issue, 1999; hereinafter 'Local Elections Law'.
11. Yeltsin first conceived of a lower house consisting of 400 deputies, of whom 130 were to be chosen from national party lists and 270 from single-member districts (Ukaz Prezidenta RF No. 1400 O poetapnoi konstitutsionnoi reforme v RF; Polozhenie O federal'nykh organakh vlasti na perekhodnyi period; Polozhenie o vyborakh deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy, 21 Sept. 1993, Sobranie aktov Prezidenta i Pravitel'stva RF 39 (1993) item 3597). The make-up of parliament to this date is a controversial issue among Russian politicians.
12. Article 39 of the Duma Election Law. The Law, however, does not prescribe in detail how the regional sub-lists are to be composed. In theory, a party list could consist of an all-federal part and only one regional sub-list.
13. That is, if at least two lists that passed this threshold received together more than 50 per cent of the votes cast for all federal lists. In the event that less than half of the votes were cast for lists that passed the five per cent threshold, the treshold was lowered (Article 80 of the Duma Election Law). This relaxation was a response to the outcome of the 1995 Duma elections, which left about half of the voters unrepresented.
14. Duma Election Law, Article 79.
15. Vremya i den'gi, 4 Oct. 1999; IEWS Russian Regional Report, internet edition, 14 Oct. 1999; Izvestiya, 22 Nov. 1999.
16. Vremya i den'gi, 4 Oct. 1999; IEWS Russian Regional Report, internet edition, 14 Oct. 1999; Izvestiya, 22 Nov. 1999.
17. Vremya i den'gi, 4 Oct. 1999; IEWS Russian Regional Report, internet edition, 14 Oct. 1999; Izvestiya, 22 Nov. 1999.
18. Gossovet Election Law, Article 33; Local Elections Law, Articles 35 and 38.
19. Federal Guarantees Law, Article 32; Gossovet Election Law, Article 30; Local Elections Law, Article 26.
20. Gossovet Election Law, Article 22; Local Elections Law, Article 19.
21. Federal Guarantees Law, Articles 36 and 37.
22. Federal Guarantees Law, Articles 49 and 52; Duma Election Law, Articles 70 and 73; Gossovet Election Law, Articles 29 and 31 ; Local Elections Law, Articles 28 and 29.
23. Federal Guarantees Law, Article 56; Duma Election Law, Article 77.
24. Gossovet Election Law, Article 8; Local Election Law, Article 8.
25. Gossovet Election Law, Article 32; Local Election Law, Article 31.
26. Federal Guarantees Law, Article 52.
27. Gossovet Election Law, Article 31; Local Election Law, Article 29.
28. A variation on this was observed by our colleague Martin Dewhirst in Kursk oblast'. There the Unity/Medved' organization distributed a new 'newspaper', Kurskii medved', issue No.0 of which was dated 14 December. With graphic illustrations the 'newspaper' suggested to readers that if they wanted to vote for Unity they should tick box 14; and if they were going to vote for another party they should put a minus sign in box 14. Non-Unity voters would thereby invalidate their ballot paper. A copy of Kurskii medved', No.0 is in the possession of the authors.