The party system: Election test

by Arkady Lyubarev

PhD in Law and Biology, expert in election law; Expert of Civil Initiatives Committee. Since 2013 - co-chairman of Movement 'Golos' Board 

More than a month ago I foresaw that 40-50 political parties of 74 eligible will stand for the Election to the State Duma. Today it is already self-evident that I have been much mistaken.

You feel pity when your forecast does not come true. It is even more pity 'for the power'. In this case - for the party system and the good intentions of those who initiated and supported the reform of party system in 2011-2012.

On 4 July, the magazine 'Kommersant Vlast' published an article 'The right to indifference'. This article was obviously written earlier: the article author was using future tense to refer to some events that took place on 24, 25 and 28 of June. The current situation is much clearer. However, in my opinion, the rather wrong emphasis was placed in the article.

CEC started posting on its website information on the party congresses. According to CEC, by July 4, 18 parties have already hosted conventions for nominating candidates and concluding party-lists, 11 of these parties had some registration related privileges and 7 parties did not. The parties of 'Green Alliance' and 'The Parents of the Future' were not among the above mentioned parties, as CEC did not endorse their conventions due to non-compliance with the notification rules: the list of single-member candidates of 'The Parents of the Future' party has already been denied registration, whereas Ella Pamfilova declared invalid the congress of 'The Alliance of the Green'.

On 6 July, at the CEC meeting Ella Pamifilova shared the most recent update: 'Currently 24 out of 74 parties eligible to run the election campaign in respect to the laws notified CEC about their conventions for nominating candidates in single-member constituencies and on party-lists. 20 of these parties have already held their party congresses'. Probably both parties-infringers were not among those 20 parties.

I am aware only of one congress held later than July 4, it was the congress of REP 'The Green'. Thus, as long as I am aware, 21 parties (including the infringers) have registered their candidates in single-member constituencies as well as party-lists - 12 of 14 privileged parties and 9 out of 60 non-privileged parties[1]. Another privileged party ('Russian Party of Pensioners for Justice') should hold a congress on 9 July. In this regard, I have no information about the privileged party 'Civil Force'.

Among the non-privileged parties that held the congress and it was certified by the CEC, was 'Labour union', 'People Against Corruption', 'Native party', 'Will', 'Party of Social Reforms', 'Great Fatherland' and the political party 'For Great work, protection of children, women, freedom, nature and pensioners'.

Parties still has one more week to nominate candidates in single-member constituencies as well as and on party-lists. However, non-privileged parties still have to collect voters' signatures, thus the delay in running a congress leads to a failure. In other words, we can be already sure that the number of parties, who at least try to stand for the upcoming Election to the State Duma, will not exceed 30 and, most likely, 25.

Though my forecast was rather wrong, it was not a disastrous failure. I divided all the parties into four categories: parties which are going to run for election; parties which are likely to run for election; parties which are likely not going to run for election; parties which indeed are not going to run for election. 9 political parties belong to the first category, 5 of them tried to run for election and the other two entered into an alliance with the 'Patriots of Russia'. Only one party of the second category attempted to run for election, of the third – 2 and of the fourth - 1.

It is important to understand what it means to a party not to take part in the electoral race for seats in the State Duma. The Law on Political Parties stipulates that a party that has never run for election within 7 years is subject to liquidation. Thus it is deemed that party has used the right to passive suffrage if it has fulfilled at least one of five conditions (in all cases it is understood that the party-list or candidates in single-member constituencies run to the polling day):

• A party-list is accepted to run in the Election to the State Duma;
• A party candidate is accepted to run in the Presidential Election;
• A party candidate is accepted to run in the Gubernatorial Election in at least 9 regions;
• Party candidates and / or party-lists are accepted to run in the Election to Regional parliament in no less than 17 regions;
• Party candidates and / or party-lists are accepted to run in the Municipal Election in at least 43 regions.

I believe that any candidate of the vast majority of parties has no realistic chance to run for the presidency (although the current illogic provisions should be noted, in case of Presidential Elections a candidate is required to collect 100 thousand signatures and in case of Election to the State Duma - 200 thousand, though most likely the Law on Presidential Elections shall be amended).

In the Gubernatorial Elections a candidate must surpass the municipal threshold, what is also almost impossible for any party. During the period of 2012-2015, the representatives of the following parties which have not yet come out in the Election to State Duma ran for the Gubernatorial Election:  Party of Pensioners of Russia (5), the Communist Party (4), Cossack party of Russia (3), 'Russian Cities' ( 2), The Party of Free Citizens (2), The Party for Justice! (1), the Party of Social Protection (1), 'Young Russia' (1), The Agrarian Party of Russia (1), 'Chestno' (eng. fair) (1), The Party of Veterans of Russia (1), the Party of Russian Revival (1), 'Automotive Russia' (1), 'Citizens' Stand' (1).

Over 4 years, 64 different Gubernatorial races were run, in the next three years there would be obviously less.

In the Elections to Regional Parliaments by party-list, to our knowledge, among the non-privileged parties only the Communist Party surpassed the threshold in 17 regions (out of 19). More than half of the 17 outstanding campaigns concern five more 'Bogdanov' parties: DPR (12), 'The Citizens of the Union' (12), People's Party of Russia (11), SDPR (10) and 'The People's Alliance' (10). Even one more 'Bogdanov' party ('Citizens' stand') runs 7 campaigns. The remaining 'small' parties run not more than 5 campaigns. However, this only concerns the party-lists, but as far as I remember, the number of candidates nominated in single-member constituencies was even lower.

Hence, in the next three years, not so many regional campaigns are run.

There is still some dreamlike chance to run for Municipal Elections in half of the regions – it is great that the Municipal Elections are run uninterrupted. However, it will require a great effort.

Thus, we can predict that the majority of parties (at least 40), which do not run for the upcoming Election to the State Duma, will be liquidated (if they are not dissolved before that), of course, if the requirements for the parties running for election are not lowered. Nevertheless, I still do not see any reason for this mitigation.

The sensational Alexei Navalny’s claim for eligibility of the Party of Progress to run for election shall be perceived as nothing more than a trolling. The party does earn a few honour points to Navalny: while he was allied with PARNAS, the struggle for the registration of the party was abandoned. However, few people have noticed that this great trolling highlighted the paradox of our party system: there is a party, ready and willing to run for election, but it does not have access to it. Yet there are about 50 parties which are eligible to stand for election, but do not put any effort in this regard.

Why were these parties established? What did they expect? 7 years of inglorious existence awaiting inglorious liquidation.

The obvious answer, which is as well given in the above mentioned article in 'Kommersant Vlast', refers to the fact that under the 2012 Reform a party could run for any elections (except the Presidential or Gubernatorial), including Elections to the State Duma, including the exemption to collect voters' signatures. In 2014, the majority of parties were already required to collect the signatures. They were not ready for this.

By the way, I have almost immediately foreseen that this happens, meaning that the reform plan will be refurbished before the Election to the State Duma. In general, it was easy to foresee this.

Nevertheless, it is a different matter. 'Kommersant Vlast' published the article citing the opinion of some experts and politicians saying that to collect 200 thousand signatures, in order to submit them to CEC, was impossible. Is it so? In the previous elections, many party-lists were registered as they fulfilled the requirement to collect signatures. However, only in 2011, it was required to collect 150 thousand signatures, whereas in the previous years - the same 200 thousand. Of course, the requirements have become tougher: since 2005 the admissible share of 'invalidated signatures' has been decreased from 25 to 5%.

Of course, in order to collect 200 thousand signatures one needs a well-organized structure and certain financial resources. Though the organizational and financial resources were necessary for the establishment and registration of a party, rather many parties rely on non-governmental organizations (consolidating pensioners, veterans, agriculture, women, Cossacks, etc.), as they can offer competent staff to collect the signatures.

It can also be said that there is no glimmer of hope for all these parties in the Election to the State Duma. Yet this was obvious since their establishment. Thus if they do not run for the Election to the State Duma they are doomed to liquidation.

The above mentioned article suggests yet another point of view: the government engaged spoilers and now it turned out that it did not need them anymore. There is some truth in it, but only partially. Indeed, many parties were established under the patronage of the administration. Therefore, without the volition of some witless politicians to lead a political party at least for some time there would not exist so many political parties.

What is it: just mediocre vanity? Some investments were made, tens of thousands of people took their time and put efforts for this. Thus as it appeared everything was done for nothing. In general, the level of our political erudition seems pretty low.

However, we cannot say that the party reform had no positive effect. Seven more political parties with at least some political prospects have joined the other seven well-established parties. Of course, due to a constant administrative interference in party-building, the party system still has some flaws. [1] A non-privileged party – a political party that is not exempted from voters‘ signature-gathering in support of the party as the pre-condition to stand for election.