Election update XI
16.03.2025
In its regular Electoral Bulletin, a digest with news about Russian elections (all issues in Russian are available here), the Movement in Defense of Voter’s Rights ’Golos’ reports on electoral trends and developments in Russia.
REM presents an election update for February/early March 2025, focusing on two key topics — preparations for the 2026 State Duma elections and the demolition of the system of local self-government.
1. New Duma constituency redistricting strips disloyal regions of their mandates in favor of ultra-loyal regions
The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) has presented a preliminary plan of constituencies for the 2026 Duma elections. According to it, seven new districts will be formed in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Moreover, three regions will receive an extra mandate: Moscow will be given 16 mandates instead of 15, Moscow Region – 12 instead of 11, Krasnodar Region – nine instead of eight.
Stanislav Andreychuk, co-chair of the Golos movement, describes these regions as “ultra-loyal” to the Kremlin, adding that with the introduction of e-voting, Moscow has become ”a giant Chechnya with unverifiable election results”.
At the same time, some regions where the authorities feel less in control will lose representation.
The following regions will each lose one constituency:
- Altai Krai will be left with three mandates instead of four as retribution for CPRF’s victory in one of the districts in 2021;
- In Zabaikalsky Krai, only one mandate will remain as retribution for the challenge Just Russia posed against United Russia in the recent gubernatorial election;
- In Kaluga Oblast, one mandate will remain, as CPRF was dangerously close to winning one of the districts in 2021;
- In Smolensk Oblast, one mandate will remain, as one of the districts was won by LDPR in 2021;
- In Tambov Oblast, one mandate will remain, as one of the districts was won by Rodina party in 2021;
- In Tomsk Oblast, one mandate will remain, as one of the districts was won by LDPR in 2021;
- Ivanovo Oblast and Rostov Oblast (one mandate will remain in each oblast in 2026);
- Volgograd Oblast and Voronezh Oblast (three mandates will remain in each in 2026).
2. Abolition of paper ballots threatens not only Moscow but the whole of Russia
On 13 February, a group of senators and deputies introduced sweeping amendments to the electoral legislation in the State Duma. On 24 February, the Duma's profile committee recommended their adoption in the first reading.
According to these amendments, electronic voting may become the main form of participation in elections. Initiators of the bill propose that voting by paper ballot should be carried out only by a decision of the CEC of Russia and, in regional elections, by a decision of the respective regional election commission. If adopted, this norm will also apply to local elections.
It is specified that if remote electronic voting (REV, i.e. voting from home or any other place outside the polling station) and electronic voting in polling stations (voting in person at the polling station using special machines called Electronic Voting Complexes) are conducted simultaneously in a region, the results of the electronic voting in polling stations may be included in the REV results. This would make election results easier to manipulate and impossible for independent observers to verify.
By adopting these amendments, the Russian authorities are positioning themselves to promote what they see as the successful use of e-voting, which was tested in the 2024 Moscow City Duma elections. [For more on how e-voting works in practice in Russia, see Andrei Pertsev's article for REM].
The bill could be put to a vote as early as the spring of this year.
On the positive side, Golos experts remain somewhat optimistic, pointing out that it is doubtful that the authorities will be able to implement the e-voting system nationwide in time for the 2026 State Duma elections. However, it is highly unlikely that Muscovites will be able to vote by paper ballot in 2026.
Meanwhile, Moscow, home to 8 million voters — around 7 percent of the country's electorate — will have no means of ensuring their votes are counted fairly. Even the statistical methods used to identify 20 million fraudulent ballots in the 2024 presidential election won't help, as there will be no data available for individual precincts — all the data will be pooled into a common pot.
3. Pressure on systemic opposition: Yabloko faces crackdown over alliance with ALDE
On 3 March 2025, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) an undesirable organization.
Yabloko, Russia’s liberal opposition party, has been a member of the Alliance since 2006. Following the news, the party rushed to terminate its membership at ALDE. However, as Russian law enforcement practice in this area generally ignores the 'no punishment without law' principle, Yabloko now faces the risk of criminal or administrative charges and the possibility of being disqualified from the elections or even liquidated.
4. After three years of debate, municipal reform given the green light
State Duma has passed in the third and final reading a bill on changes to the organization of local self-government in Russia.
The main amendment to the law that has been the subject of debate is the abolition of the two-tier system of local government, i.e., essentially the abolition of the lowest level of government closest to the electorate. The original version of the reform provided for the complete abolition of urban and rural municipalities, and consequently of urban and rural councils, in all regions.
After some national republics protested against this wording, the final version of the text replaced the mandatory abolition of the lower level of self-government with a voluntary one. Now, each region will supposedly decide on this issue on its own. After the third reading in the State Duma, only 17 Russian regions and the occupied Crimea announced their intention to retain the two-tier model. The rest are planning, or have already done, to abolish the urban and rural councils.
Among the other key amendments is one that grants the authorities of federal cities – Moscow, St. Petersburg, and occupied Sevastopol – the right to extend the term of office for municipal deputies and heads of local authorities by two years. The law's authors claim this measure is intended to ensure the one-time commencement of the exercise of powers by local self-government bodies.
The amendments also include provisions for regulating the work of local self-government bodies during martial law, which is currently in effect in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
The majority of deputies from United Russia, LDPR and New People voted in favor of the amendments, while the CPRF and Just Russia voted against.
5. Cancelled direct mayoral elections in Yakutsk
The dismantling of local self-governance is also progressing outside the scope of the municipal reform.
In Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha–Yakutia, deputies in the city duma have voted to abolish direct mayoral elections. A similar bill is now awaiting approval by the republic's State Council, and there is little doubt that it will pass. If the law comes into force, only three regional capitals in Russia will still have direct mayoral elections: Abakan (capital of the Republic of Khakassia, South Siberia, pop. 185,000), Anadyr (administrative center of Chukotka, Far East, pop. 13,000) and Khabarovsk (Khabarovsk Krai, Far East, pop. 615,000).
The abolition of direct mayoral elections has been unfolding over the past two decades and has been one of the key milestones in the federal authorities' construction of the vertical of power. This has had two consequences: urban residents have been pushed as far away as possible from participating in decisions that affect their lives, while local political elites have been stripped of institutions that allowed them to challenge governors.
