Political and Legal Peculiarities of September 2021 Regional and Local Elections

According to the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation's data as of 9 July 2021, 4,370 elections and referenda are scheduled for 19 September 2021, including elections to the State Duma, nine gubernatorial elections (new heads will be elected in three more regions), 39 elections to regional parliaments, and 11 elections of representative bodies of regional centres.

In addition to elections in regional centres, there are 571 municipal elections for heads of municipalities and basic elections for representative bodies in 2,430 municipalities. Of these, 42 use a fully-proportional system, and 60 a mixed system.

Most regional elections were scheduled on the latest days permitted by law. Of the 59 most significant regional and local election campaigns, in 50 (85%) the final version of the law regulating elections was adopted less than 30 days before the campaign, making it difficult for candidates and parties without insider information about the legislative plans of the authorities to prepare for the elections.

This was largely due to the late adoption of changes to electoral legislation at the federal level. At the same time, some regions made such changes during the last revision of the election legislation that was not related to the latest amendments of the federal legislation. For example, four regions changed their electoral fund ceilings at the last minute, St. Petersburg changed the rules for splitting the party list into groups, Leningrad Oblast changed the number of candidates in the central part of the list, and three regions introduced the possibility of collecting signatures through the online state Gosuslugi portal.

Such delaying of the formal appointment of the elections is particularly disadvantageous to those parties and candidates who have to collect signatures, as every day counts in this case. There is no doubt that this is a systematic and deliberate action against some selected parties and candidates.

The rotation of governors in 2021 returns to 2017-2019, when there was a peak in the appointment of technocratic governors (falling in 2020 amidst coronavirus pandemic-related risks and uncertainties). Already at the stage of scheduling elections, which will take place in the fall of 2021, out of nine direct governor elections and three governor elections by regional parliaments, the federal government has replaced eight governors with new interim ones (that is, already before the elections the renewal rate is 67%). However, there is still a trend towards the appointment of politicians and officials with no direct connection to the regions they have been put in charge of (in six of the eight regions where new interim governors have been appointed, they are de facto 'outsiders'). Thus, the trend of high turnover of regional heads continues, not as a result of elections, but in a purely administrative way.

The basic conditions of gubernatorial elections in those regions where they are held in 2021 have not changed. The claims to lower the municipal filter¹, including by the CEC chair, remained unfulfilled. In these elections, the minimum threshold is set at 5% only in Belgorod Oblast (where it had been the same before), in four regions, the threshold is 7%, and in four regions, it is higher than 7%. In absolute terms, however, the number of signatures has decreased in a number of regions, which indicates a decrease in the number of municipal deputies. Thus, in Mordovia, the number of signatures of all deputies dropped from 230 to 184, in Belgorod Oblast – from 150 to 106, in Tver Oblast – from 247 to 175, in Ulyanovsk Oblast – from 170 to 141.

The significance of political parties is continuously diminishing. In regional parliamentary elections, the proportional component has been significantly reduced in six regions. A fully proportional system is used in regional elections only in the three Caucasus regions where systematic election fraud was registered in previous elections – Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya. In the elections of the representative bodies of the regional centers, in two cities (Nalchik and Grozny), the system is fully proportional, and in two (Kaliningrad and Saratov) – fully majoritarian. In the remaining seven cities, the system is mixed, with five cities having equal or approximately equal majoritarian components and two (Perm and Stavropol) being dominated by the majoritarian component.

At the same time, the tendency to reduce the number of deputies continues. In five regions, the number of deputies in regional parliaments was noticeably reduced. The reduction in the proportional component leads to an increase in disparities in party representation, usually in favour of the party of power, and the reduction in the number of deputies reduces the level of representativeness of the regional parliament.

The continuation of these trends in regional and local elections of the Russian Federation will inevitably lead not only to a further reduction of the influence of political parties but also to a further reduction in their number so that it will become impossible to get a benefit for the registration of candidates for elections at a higher level.

The use of the 'Imperiali quota,' which cannot be considered a proportional mandate allocation method, is increasing. This method gives a clear advantage to the leading party. This time it will be used in 13 of the 39 regions with significant regional and local elections on 19 September 2021. Thus, the fairest method of simple quota (the Heir-Niemeier method) will remain only in three regions out of 85: Ingushetia, Tatarstan, and the Chechen Republic (all of them belong to the zone of so-called 'electoral anomalies'²).

In most regions, laws unnecessarily require parties to split their lists into a large number of territorial groups, which usually leads to territorial imbalances. In addition, laws require parties to include a large number of candidates on lists, most of whom have no chance of winning elections. Sometimes the minimum number of candidates on a list can be many times higher than the number of mandates distributed under the proportional system.

The limits on the spending of electoral funds per voter vary considerably in the regions: from 57.7 to 404 rubles per voter at the gubernatorial elections, from 15.1 To 459 rubles for parties, and from 17.9 to 1,052 rubles for candidates at regional elections. This indicates that no clear criteria for setting standards for electoral funds have yet been developed, and decisions are made on the basis of taste or opportunistic considerations.

In the 2021 general elections of regional parliaments, the possibility to collect signatures in support of the nomination of candidates and parties via the Gosuslugi portal is provided by the laws of ten regions. In the Orenburg oblast, however, the maximum percentage of such signatures is only 15%, in the Tver oblast – 25%, in the rest of the regions – 50%.

In all elections to regional parliaments and municipal elections in regional centers, the number of parties with registration privileges (exempted from collecting voter signatures) is significantly lower than the number of parties with such privileges in the State Duma elections. In many regions, only four parliamentary parties have this privilege (Mordovia, Kamchatka Territory, Amur, Kursk, Nizhni Novgorod, Samara, Tyumen Regions, Jewish Autonomous Region, Khanty-Mansi, and Chukotka Autonomous Areas). Moscow Oblast has the largest number of beneficiaries of this regulation (10), while in other regions, five to eight parties have the privilege.

References:

¹ This provision, introduced after Dmitry Medvedev returned direct gubernatorial elections at the end of his presidential term in 2012, stipulates that potential candidates in these elections must collect signatures from 5 to 10 percent of local legislators. This provision is seen by Russian election experts as the main barrier for opposition candidates to stand in governor elections: https://komitetgi.ru/analytics/3389/ .

² Several minority regions of the Northern Caucasus and Volga Region, characterized by highly authoritarian regional political regimes, tend to massively vote in favor of the ruling party – although independent electoral experts and the opposition claim rampant election fraud.

For a more detailed overview of legal regulations and peculiarities of 2021 regional elections, see this report by 'Golos' Movement and Liberal Mission Foundation: https://www.golosinfo.org/articles/145301 (RU)