1993 Russian legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Russia on 12 December 1993.^[1] They were the first parliamentary elections in post-Soviet Russia and the only time to the Federation Council,^[2] with future members appointed by provincial legislatures and governors.

1993 Russian legislative election (State Duma)

← 1990 12 December 1993 1995 →
All 450 seats to the State Duma 226 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	54.81% ( 22.19 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky Yegor Gaidar Gennady Zyuganov Party LDPR Choice of Russia CPRF Leader since 13 December 1989 16 October 1993 14 February 1993 Leader's seat Shchyolkovo Federal list Federal list Seats won 64 62 42 Popular vote 12,318,562 8,339,345 6,666,402 Percentage 21.35% (PL) 14.45% (PL) 11.55% (PL)   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Mikhail Lapshin Grigory Yavlinsky Alevtina Fedulova Party APR YaBL Women of Russia Leader since 26 February 1993 16 October 1993 1 October 1993 Leader's seat Federal list Federal list Federal list Seats won 38 27 24 Popular vote 4,292,518 4,223,219 4,369,918 Percentage 7.44% (PL) 7.32% (PL) 7.57% (PL)   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Sergey Shakhray Nikolay Travkin Arkady Volsky Party PRES DPR Civic Union Leader since 17 October 1993 26 May 1990 21 October 1993 Leader's seat Federal list Federal list Federal list (lost) Seats won 22 15 7 Popular vote 3,620,035 2,969,533 1,038,193 Percentage 6.27% (PL) 5.15% (PL) 1.80% (PL)
Most voted-for party by region
Chairman of the Supreme Soviet before election Ruslan Khasbulatov[a] Independent Chairman of the State Duma after Ivan Rybkin APR

Background

The 1993 general election was taking place in the aftermath of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, a violent confrontation on the streets of Moscow which resulted in the dissolution of the previous Russian parliament by military force. Boris Yeltsin hoped to resolve the political turmoil by decreeing for the election to the new Russian parliament and the constitutional referendum to take place on 12 December 1993.

Electoral system

The new election law adopted for the 1993 Duma election stipulated half the 450 Duma members were elected by a party-list system of proportional representation, and half were elected as individual representatives from single-member districts. Every Russian voter thus received two different ballots. The proportional representation ballot required each voter to endorse an electoral organization or vote against all of them. By contrast, the single-member district ballot required a voter to endorse an individual, whose party affiliation, if any, could not be given on the ballot.

In order to nominate a list of candidates in the proportional representation ballot, a party or electoral organization had to gather 100,000 signatures from the electorate, of which no more than 15% could be from any one region or republic. The method used to calculate the number of seats won by each party was the Hare method, with a threshold of 5.0 per cent of the valid vote, including votes cast against all, but excluding invalid ballots. To secure a place on a single-member district ballot, candidates had to gather the signatures of at least 1.0 percent of the constituency electorate. The winner in each single-member districts contest was simply the candidate with the plurality of votes, regardless of the number of votes cast against all.

Political blocs

№	Bloc		Abbr.	First troika	Political position	Ideologies	Notes
1		Agrarian Party of Russia	APR	Mikhail Lapshin • Alexander Davydov • Alexander Zaveryukha	Left-wing	Agrarian socialism / Collectivism	[3]
2		Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin	YaBL	Grigory Yavlinsky • Yury Boldyrev • Vladimir Lukin	Centre-left	Social democracy / Social liberalism
3		Future of Russia–New Names	BRNI	Vyacheslav Laschevsky • Oleg Sokolov • Vladimir Mironov	Centre	Youth politics / Social policies
4		Choice of Russia	VR	Yegor Gaidar • Sergei Kovalev • Ella Pamfilova	Centre-right	Conservative liberalism / Liberal conservatism
5		Civic Union for Stability, Justice and Progress	GS	Arkady Volsky • Nikolay Bekh • Alexander Vladislavlev	Centre to centre-left	Social democracy / Anti-Yeltsinism / Federalism
6		Democratic Party of Russia	DPR	Nikolay Travkin • Stanislav Govorukhin • Oleg Bogomolov	Centre-right	Conservatism
7		Dignity and Charity	DM	Konstantin Frolov • Nikolai Gubenko • Vyacheslav Grishin	Big tent	Federalism / Veterans' rights / Disabled rights
8		Communist Party of the Russian Federation	CPRF	Gennady Zyuganov • Vitaly Sevastyanov • Viktor Ilyukhin	Left-wing to far-left	Communism / Marxism–Leninism / Left-wing nationalism
9		Constructive-Ecological Movement of Russia "Kedr"	KEDR	Lyubov Lymar • Vladimir Chiburayev • Stanislav Baranov	Centre to centre-left	Green politics / Agrarianism
10		Liberal Democratic Party of Russia	LDPR	Vladimir Zhirinovsky • Viktor Kobelev • Vyacheslav Marychev	Right-wing to far-right	Right-wing populism / Pan-Slavism
11		Party of Russian Unity and Accord	PRES	Sergey Shakhray • Alexander Shokhin • Konstantin Zatulin	Centre-right	Moderate liberalism / Conservatism / Regionalism
12		Women of Russia	ZhR	Alevtina Fedulova • Ekaterina Lakhova • Natalya Gundareva	Centre	Women's rights / Pacifism
13		Russian Democratic Reform Movement	RDDR	Anatoly Sobchak • Svyatoslav Fyodorov • Oleg Basilashvili	Centre	Liberal democracy / Federalism

Results

State Duma

Party		Party list			Constituency			Total seats
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Liberal Democratic Party of Russia	12,318,562	22.92	59	1,604,785	3.04	5	64
	Choice of Russia	8,339,345	15.51	37	3,608,497	6.84	25	62
	Communist Party of the Russian Federation	6,666,402	12.40	32	1,848,888	3.50	10	42
	Women of Russia	4,369,918	8.13	22	309,378	0.59	2	24
	Agrarian Party of Russia	4,292,518	7.99	22	2,879,410	5.46	16	38
	Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin	4,223,219	7.86	20	1,854,447	3.52	7	27
	Party of Russian Unity and Accord	3,620,035	6.73	19	1,433,158	2.72	3	22
	Democratic Party of Russia	2,969,533	5.52	14	1,142,830	2.17	1	15
	Russian Democratic Reform Movement	2,191,505	4.08	0	1,038,068	1.97	4	4
	Civic Union	1,038,193	1.93	0	1,591,476	3.02	7	7
	Future of Russia–New Names	672,283	1.25	0	411,426	0.78	1	1
	Constructive-Ecological Movement "Kedr"	406,789	0.76	0	301,266	0.57	0	0
	Dignity and Charity	375,431	0.70	0	445,168	0.84	3	3
	Independents				26,171,737	49.61	135	135
Against all		2,267,963	4.22	–	8,117,106	15.39	–	–
Vacant seats[b]							6	6
Total		53,751,696	100.00	225	52,757,640	100.00	225	450
Valid votes		53,751,696	93.16
Invalid/blank votes		3,946,002	6.84
Total votes		57,697,698	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		106,170,835	54.34
Source: Nohlen & Stöver, University of Essex, Boschler

1. Until 4 October 1993)
2. Five seats in Tatarstan were left vacant due to a low turnout (less than 25%) and were elected at a later date, whilst one seat in Chechnya remained unfilled.^[4]

Federation Council

Although the Federation Council was contested on a non-party basis,^[2] 11 were members of the Communist Party, six were members of Russia's Choice and nine were members of other parties.^[5]

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Independents	53,751,696	100.00	171
Vacant[a]				7
Total		53,751,696	100.00	178
Valid votes		53,751,696	93.16
Invalid/blank votes		3,946,002	6.84
Total votes		57,697,698	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		106,170,835	54.34
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

1. Five seats were elected at a later date, whilst two seats in Chechnya remained unfilled.^[6]

Aftermath

The results of the polls proved to be disappointing for the Kremlin: the two competing pro-government parties, Russia's Choice and the Party of Russian Unity and Accord, gained 15.5% and 6.7% of the vote respectively and won 123 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. Neither party was able to control the parliamentary agenda nor impose the will of the president on the Duma. Lacking legislative success, both parties rapidly lost membership.

Parliamentary groups

The use of the mixed system for the election of the Duma produced a large number of deputies which were unaffiliated with any electoral bloc. By joining other parliamentary groups or forming groups of independent deputies, they could significantly influence the balance of power in the Duma. Hence, the parliamentary groups in the first two-year term of the Duma showed lack of stability and its numbers may be given only with approximation.

Parliamentary group		Leader	Seats
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia		Vladimir Zhirinovsky	53–64
Russia's Choice		Yegor Gaidar	47–78
Communist Party of the Russian Federation		Gennady Zyuganov	45–47
Women of Russia		Yekaterina Lakhova	20–24
Agrarian Party of Russia		Mikhail Lapshin	50–55
Yabloko		Grigory Yavlinsky	27–28
Party of Russian Unity and Accord		Sergey Shakhray	12–34
Democratic Party of Russia		Nikolay Travkin	8–15
Liberal Democratic Union of 12 December		Irina Khakamada	11–38
New Regional Politics - Duma-96		V. Medvedev	30–67
Russia		I. Shichalin	34–38
Stability		A. Leushkin	34–40
Russian Way (unregistered)		Sergei Baburin	11–14
Strong State (Derzhava) (unregistered)		V. Kobelev	4–5

See also

• List of members of the 1st Russian State Duma

Notes

References

1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1642 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
2. Nohlen & Stöver, p1656
3. https://www.rcoit.ru/lib/history/russian_federation/18050/ «Выборы в Государственную Думу Федерального Собрания Российской Федерации первого созыва»
4. Результаты выборов в Думу I созыва (in Russian).
5. Nohlen & Stöver, p1658
6. Nohlen & Stöver, p1659

External links

• Russian general elections