Russian Duma Elections - 12.07.03

 

 

"Putin’s Parliament" (Washington Post, December 9) JTA Coverage (December 9) OSCE Criticism (December 8) Putin Bolstered (New York Times, December 8) Putin Allies Sweep Duma Elections (Moscow Times, December 8) Putin Bolstered (New York Times, December 8) Moscow Times commentaries RFERL analysis Carnegie focus

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TO:	Interested Parties
FROM:	Robert J. Meth, M.D., Chairman Joel M. Schindler, Ph.D., President Mark B. Levin, Executive Director
DATE:	December 5, 2003
SUBJECT:	Update on Russian State Duma Elections

Russian voters are going to the polls this Sunday, December 7, to elect a new parliament (Duma).  NCSJ has been in contact with local and national community leadership across Russia, and we wanted to share their impressions prior to the election.

The overriding sentiment concerning the elections is resignation and low expectations.  There is little excitement about the candidates and no great hope that anything will change for the better.  In Moscow, visible signs of campaigning are largely absent.  In contrast to the 1999 elections, when the city was blanketed with campaign literature, the business community has reduced its financing for political parties.

Media coverage is controlled by the federal government, with no independent television stations remaining.  One community contact suggested that, with power increasingly concentrated in the President, the Duma’s status has declined and only the trappings of democracy remain.

Expressions of anti-Semitism continue to be a part of Russian election campaigns. During a campaign debate broadcast by NTV which featured extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhirnovsky (Liberal Democratic Party), Sergei Glazev (Motherland National-Patriotic Union Party), Anatoly Chubais (Union of Rightist Forces), and reformist leader Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko), a Motherland representative complained that of the candidates present, only one was Russian and the rest were Jewish.  

The number-two man on the Communist party’s national list, Nikolai Kondratenko, consistently engages in anti-Semitic rhetoric, blaming Jews for  “genocide” against the Russian people.  In Novosibirsk, Siberia, anti-Semitism has been injected into the gubernatorial race, which is also being contested on December 7.  One of the gubernatorial candidates, Boris Mironov, has been actively utilizing newspapers to spread his anti-Semitic message.  In one such publication he wrote, “How could you, Russians, allow Governor Tolokonsky, a Jew, to be your leader! While Russians are becoming poorer and poorer, Jews are becoming fatter and fatter – that is fascism.”  In Tula, an anti-Semitic newspaper urged everyone to vote or “Israel will vote for us.”  

Twenty-three parties are in the race for the State Duma, but only five or six have a chance of meeting the needed five-percent threshold to win parliamentary seats. In the most recent polls, Unified Russia, a pro-Kremlin party, is projected to receive the largest number of votes.

The Communist Party is placing second, and the two liberal parties – Yabloko and Union of Rightist Forces are far behind in the pack.

We will continue to monitor the election environment and will provide an analysis of the results next week.

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