|
|
|
|
The Russian Election Compendium
PREFACE
1995 and 1996 were landmark years in the historic process of building Russian democracy. In December 1995, a wide-open, fiercely-contested campaign among 43 parties produced a Duma in which opponents to the government outnumbered supporters by more than two to one. The government's party, Our Home is Russia, led by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, won only 10% of the vote.
In the summer of 1996, for the first time in 1000 years, Russian citizens selected the leader of their country in a democratic election. President Yeltsin's closest associate, Alexander Korzhakov and others, sought to postpone the election, concerned about the stress of the campaign on Yeltsin's health and the possibility that the president would lose. Yeltsin, nonetheless, chose to fight the electoral battle. Though he failed to win the required 50% of the votes during the first round of voting, in the subsequent second round, Yeltsin triumphed.
The fact that these elections occurred in Russia in 1995 and 1996 must count as a great leap forward for Russian democracy. But within these electoral events is an even more remarkable and more important message. In Russia today, the democratic presumption is taking hold. By democratic presumption, we mean the expectation that the normal and appropriate way to answer the question of who governs is to hold an open competition in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins, and the winner thereby acquires political power.
In parliamentary, presidential, gubernatorial, and thousands of regional elections, Russian citizens have chosen their rulers. None of the elections have been canceled. The rules regarding campaigns and elections have been followed more or less; no winners have been barred from taking office. Across the entire political spectrum, people are accepting the idea that democratic elections are the right way to determine who governs.
Much remains to be done to institutionalize democratic processes in Russia. Russia has not yet seen a successful transition of presidential power. Russian electoral practices still fall short of established international standards. Nevertheless, any fair assessment of the progress in the past two years must conclude that the Russian democratization glass is "half full" rather than "half empty."
In the fall of 1994, Harvard University's Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI), based at the Kennedy School of Government, began a Russian Party-Building and Campaigning Program as part of its research on Russian democratization. This program was designed to assist leaders of Russian political parties in their efforts to strengthen the Russian party system and in their preparations for elections. Led by SDI Research Associate Matthew Lantz and SDI Senior Research Associate Sergei Grigoriev, the program brought to the Boston area a number of Russian politicians and campaign consultants from various factions to discuss parties, elections, and campaigns with their American counterparts and to observe first-hand the American election process leading up to the US presidential election. SDI also produced (in Russian) The Party-Building and Campaigning
Handbook which summarized Western party-building and campaign experiences and was distributed to all major political parties in the Duma prior to the December 17, 1995 Duma election. Moreover, as part of Harvard's Executive Program for Members of the State Duma, SDI provided a series of classes on political parties, elections, and campaigns to representatives from each of the factions in the Duma.
In addition to its direct assistance to Russians working to build democracy, SDI realized that its exposure to top Russian leaders gave it a unique perspective on the Russian election scene. As a result, with Matthew Lantz as editor-in-chief, our SDI team including Sergei Grigoriev, John Lloyd, and me began producing in the beginning of June 1995 the Russian Election Watch. This bi-monthly report was designed to inform American politicians, academics, and journalists about the latest Russian election developments. The Russian Election Watch grew from an small-circulated, internal report of a couple of pages, to a widely-distributed 20-page briefing document. It earned a place on the SDI website and was later widely circulated through David Johnson's Russia List, a Washington, DC-based email service.
To accompany the more factual Russian Election Watch, SDI produced a series of occasional analytical briefs assessing events unfolding in Russia and their impact on Russian democracy and US interests. SDI also hosted two major conferences on the Russian elections, one at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, prior to the 1995 Duma elections, and one in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before the 1996 presidential elections. In both conferences, journalists, academics, and Russian politicians participated.
This volume, The Russian Election Compendium, is the culmination of the two years of SDI's work on the Russian elections. It includes all Russian Election Watches from the Duma, presidential, and the gubernatorial elections; all of SDI's analytical memos assessing the elections and the state of Russian democracy; and all briefing material and summaries from both SDI conferences. Finally, it contains articles by SDI team members and press coverage of SDI activities involving the Russian elections.
The Russian Election Compendium is designed for those who may find a bi-monthly play-by-play of what happened in the Russian election process for the years 1995-1996 useful. It should be valuable for researchers writing about the elections. This volume will be followed later this year by a more analytical SDI publication assessing progress in Russian democratization, Russian political party-building, as well as Western assistance to Russian democratization.
Graham T. Allison
Director
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
March 1997
Email this citation