Party system of the Russian Federation

 

The party system of the Russian Federation is a system with a dominant party (United Russia) and a small number of other active parties (CPRF, Just Russia, LDPR, New People, Yabloko).

The formation of the current Russian party system was unfolding during the consolidation of the authoritarian regime in the 2000s. In the 1990s, Russia’s party system was extremely fragmented, with the number of parties exceeding 40. However, as a result of legal and electoral reforms, the number of existing parties decreased to 7 by 2011. Thus, a party system favorable to the authoritarian regime was formed. United Russia gained a dominant position, occupying most seats in both the State Duma and regional parliaments. Other parties rarely achieved success.

The protests of 2011-2012 resulted in the liberalization of the requirements for party registration. Although the total number of parties dramatically increased to 75 in 2014, this did not lead to a significant change in the status quo.

Due to the nature of authoritarian policy, the party system of the Russian Federation is based on the relationship between the parties and the Russian authorities. Formally, a fairly large number of registered parties exist in the Russian Federation (25 parties^[1] as of July 2024), but only very few of them (CPRF, LDPR, Just Russia, New People, Yabloko, Civil Initiative and a couple of others) actively participate in elections and fight for representation. These parties formally stand as opposition to United Russia, but in fact they are part of the system formed by the Kremlin. The fact that alternative parties exist and run in the elections against United Russia allows the Kremlin to demonstrate the formal existence of opposition.

Some parties, mainly those represented in the federal parliament (CPRF, LDPR, Just Russia, New People) or in regional parliaments (for example, Yabloko), are often called systemic opposition or systemic parties. This term implies that such parties adhere to the existing unspoken rules and may coordinate their work with the authorities.

Systemic parties (CPRF, LDPR, Just Russia, New People, Yabloko) can be considered legal opposition. Their candidates for deputies or gubernatorial positions most often can easily go through registration, circumventing multiple barriers (collecting signatures for nomination, passing the municipal filter). Systemic parties participate in most regional or municipal elections but rarely achieve significant success.

At the same time, systemic parties differ in their degree of loyalty to the Kremlin. LDPR and Just Russia are the most loyal and rarely oppose any initiatives United Russia puts on the table. CPRF and Yabloko are the least loyal systemic parties. CPRF is the most oppositional force represented in the State Duma. At the same time, its level of loyalty to the authorities has been gradually increasing in recent years. Yabloko is the most disloyal in the system but, being institutionally weakened has no leverage to implement its criticism.

At the regional level, the loyalty of systemic parties can vary. For example, LDPR, which is generally loyal to the Kremlin, became quite oppositional in Khabarovsk Krai after its candidate Sergei Furgal won the 2018 gubernatorial election, gained the majority of seats in the 2019 regional legislature and was detained after.

There is also non-systemic opposition in Russia’s party system. One of the implications of being a non-systemic opposition in Russia is the inability to register a party. Alexei Navalny tried to register a party for a long time but never succeeded. Ekaterina Duntsova, who was not registered as a presidential candidate in 2024, and her party Rassvet (not registered) also belong to the non-systemic opposition. Civic Initiative party is another non-systemic opposition party, whose existence can be rather attributed to the legacy of the party system liberalization that happened in 2012. Unlike other non-systemic opposition parties, Civic Initiative was able to nominate a candidate for president twice: Ksenia Sobchak in 2018 and Boris Nadezhdin in 2024 (unregistered).

Unlike systemic opposition, politicians from non-systemic opposition do not coordinate their actions with the Kremlin at the cost of not being registered as candidates, even if they fulfil all conditions required for nomination (for example, collected the necessary amount of voter signatures). Further, they are subject to repression.

Besides that, the Russian party system features a notable number of registered parties that lack recognition and popularity among voters. Most of them were created during the period of simplified party registration in 2012 but did not have significant electoral success thereafter. Many of them are pro-governmental, stemming from organizations affiliated with the state, or have a political engineering backdrop. Most of these parties fall into the category of spoiler parties. Their role is to create the illusion of political competition and reduce the influence of systemic parties.

For instance, there are several parties with names similar to CPRF, intentionally designed to mislead the voters and pull the votes from CPRF - Communists of Russia and the Communist Party of Social Justice (CPSJ). Despite the efforts of the authorities, the effectiveness of the strategy of creating spoiler parties can be disputed, as spoiler parties rarely gain any meaningful electoral percentages.

 

^[1] At the time of writing https://minjust.gov.ru/ru/pages/politicheskie-partii/