Previewing the 2003 Duma Election: Lessons from 1999

Timothy Colton started out by saying that not much had been known about the eventual outcome of the 1999 elections when he and Michael McFaul started work on their project. A year and a half before the elections, Prof. Colton did not even know who Vladimir Putin was. It was clear that the elections would be a watershed, but what was less apparent was “where the water would flow.”

The two Russia experts combined two approaches in their analysis of the Russian elections of 1999. One was the academic approach, focusing on public opinion, while the other was a more journalistic approach, concentrating on the elites. Combining the two views gave them a clearer picture of “what lay behind winning and losing” in the elections.

Colton and McFaul used a research method that was innovative in the Russian setting: they re-interviewed a panel of 1,500-1,600 people who had originally been interviewed in the mid-1990s. This allowed them to study trends in Russian public opinion. In most cases, researchers impute past voting behavior by questioning today’s panelists. Colton and McFaul discovered that in the case of Russia, such an approach has an accuracy of only 50 percent, because many voters could not remember exactly how they voted in the past, instead “projecting backwards their current behavior.”

The panel revealed that the Russian electorate was fed up with the state of affairs in Russia, and yet Russians were “not so angry that they refused to participate.” Most, in fact, accepted the legitimacy of elections. The panel indicated that Russians were not “atomized individuals” who voted on impulse come election day. Neither were they “automatons” who would vote as they were told to by the authorities.

Colton and McFaul discovered that voters’ social background was relevant to the manner in which they voted, as was their age and the rural/urban divide. There was some attachment to parties, particularly the Communist Party (KPRF) and Yabloko, but nevertheless parties continued to be weak. And while issues mattered, no single issue was dominant. For example, 50 percent of the respondents approved of Mr. Putin’s handling of Chechnya. Half the respondents also said that Putin’s ability to pay pensions on time was commendable. While Chechnya mattered to voters, Putin garnered votes from people for and against the Chechen War.

Interestingly, the Unity party, founded with the aim of continuing the policies of the Yeltsin era, dissociated itself from Boris Yeltsin himself after he grew highly unpopular. This stratagem enabled Unity to gain votes, while Fatherland-Russia’s Choice (OVR), which was more closely associated with the Primakov government, lost badly in the election. Hence, McFaul and Colton dubbed OVR the Party of Hubris.

Prof. Colton noted that everyone researching Russian elections tended to focus only on the Duma seats distributed by party list. While there are 225 of those seats, the other half of the Duma is subject to single-mandate elections, which hardly anyone studies. In their analysis of voting patterns in single-mandate districts, Colton and McFaul discovered that as much as 60 percent of the electorate turns in “split-ticket” votes. That is, they vote for one party in the party-list portion of the election, and a representative of another party in the single-mandate portion. Prof. Colton found this practice mystifying, and noted that the people who control the Kremlin tend to “draw a lot of support from single-member districts.”

In conclusion, Prof. Colton posed the question of whether Russia’s elections will continue to matter. No one wastes their time studying in elections in Uzbekistan, and while he acknowledged that the political system in Russia was still more democratic than in Uzbekistan, he asked whether freedom of choice in Russia was becoming too slight to matter.

Prof. Michael McFaul focused on the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. He noted that there was a contextual difference between the 1999 elections and the 2003-04 ones. The playing field is now more constrained: the state controls the three national television channels, and there are fewer opportunities to buy yourself a place in TV coverage; the state is playing a much greater role in organizing the elections, and is now fully in control of the Central Electoral Commission; regional elites are not split between two parties, as they were in 1999; sources of funding are constrained – no one funds anyone without Kremlin approval, which is the essence of “managed democracy.” Furthermore, there is no drama in the 2003 elections. In 1999, the elites, the oligarchs and the TV channels were divided (some supported OVR, while others opted for Unity). Now, on the other hand, they are all behind United Russia. There is also less room for maneuver now in attracting votes.

In these circumstances, most actors are being defensive, except for United Russia, which is the only party aiming to expand its Duma presence. Prof. McFaul went over the major parties’ platforms and pre-election standings. The Communist Party (KPRF) has an ideology of heavy nationalism and welfare-statism. It is likely to maintain its share of the proportional vote due to a devoted and stable following. The Kremlin, however, is “out to get them” in the single-mandate districts, for example by supporting the alternative far-left Motherland Bloc. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPR) is apparently also trying to steal votes from the KPRF by going from the far right of the political spectrum to the far left. Mr. Zhirinovsky’s appeals (“I am for the poor, I am for ethnic Russians”) have changed tack, and the LDPR seems to harbor “illusions about gaining” seats in the next Duma. However, it is not bothering to conduct a campaign in the single-mandate districts.

On the liberal side of the spectrum, Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko is playing a defensive game. The Kremlin has not yet decided to call Yabloko “Khodorkovsky’s party,” despite the funding channeled into Yabloko by the oligarch. Should the Kremlin launch a propaganda attack on Yabloko that would link it to Mr. Khodorkovsky, the party itself predicts that its electoral prospects would be done for. President Putin may prefer not to attack Yabloko in this fashion, however, because it is “convenient to have a liberal party in the Duma.” Yabloko’s electorate seems confined to the disgruntled lower middle class.

The Union of Rightist Forces (SPS), led by Boris Nemtsov and Anatoly Chubais, is also on the defensive. It is well funded, and no longer has an identity problem. It is a party that appeals to the upper middle class by saying, “We do things – we are the people of the future.” However, the party is not strong enough to run a campaign in the single-mandate districts.

In contrast to the above parties, United Russia is going into the campaign with a high degree of confidence, planning to rule Russia “for decades.” While it compares itself to Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, it is more akin to the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU). United Russia essentially wants to institute a two-party system in Russia, with itself as the permanent ruling party. It has done little to distinguish itself in terms of issues, preferring to ride on the coattails of President Putin. One election campaign poster, for example, features a quote from Mr. Putin, saying “For a united and strong Russia.” According to McFaul, while the word “united” merely harks back to the days of the Unity party, it is “strong” that is the keyword in both Mr. Putin’s program and the party’s. United Russia is utilizing the state apparatus in its campaign, and already 30 regional governors “have their instructions.”

Prof. McFaul ended his presentation by noting that elections do still matter in Russia, and they do so more than in Uzbekistan. He wondered, however, if the elections in Iran are more consequential than those in Russia.

Responding to a question from Anders Åslund, Prof. McFaul predicted that a surprise opposition victory in Russia, as was the case in Ukraine, is highly unlikely. An important reason for this is Mr. Putin’s popularity rating of more than 70 percent, which makes the Russian situation very different from that of Ukraine. Mr. Putin’s “Teflon” quality can be attributed to the fact that if Russians stop liking him, they will also have to admit that they were wrong in trusting him, which they are unwilling to do. However, the opposition may still gain a swing vote a few weeks before the election, as was the case with LDPR in 1993 and Unity in 1999.

Regarding government control of the media, Prof. Colton noted that negative coverage may actually help a party gain votes. The KPRF had looked forward to negative coverage in 1999, hoping that being in the news, and being bashed by the Kremlin, would help it in the polling booth. In the event, however, the KPRF was essentially ignored, and most coverage went to OVR. Thus, being ignored by state-owned media is a real danger for opposition parties. However, control over the media “did not save the Soviet regime,” and the same dynamic might emerge this time around.

Michael McFaul also explained why Mikhail Khodorkovsky could not serve as a focal point for opposition to Mr. Putin among the elites. The other oligarchs are all hoping that the Khodorkovsky case is a one-off. They all think that Mr. Khodorkovsky has made political mistakes that they themselves have not, and so they hope to cut individual deals with the Kremlin. Mr. Chubais, on the other hand, could unite the elites against Mr. Putin, but so far he is not in personal danger.

Regarding foreign policy, Prof. Colton noted, based on the experience of the 1990s, that “foreign policy issues… just didn’t move the electorate.” All the leading parties make nationalist claims to some extent, which cancel each other out. Moreover, Russians are more concerned with domestic matters than Russia’s relations with other countries, including CIS countries.

To a large extent, the upcoming elections are expected to be devoid of drama. “Tragically or not,” Prof. McFaul observed, the real drama in terms of opening the system will come with the issue of succession to Mr. Putin in 2008. There is some degree of uncertainty involved in the electoral process, but United Russia has been doing its best to reduce it.

Prof. Colton concluded the session by commenting that evolutionary changes are difficult to achieve under authoritarianism. However, if Russia experiences significant economic growth that is dispersed among the population, the number of people interested in defending their wealth is likely to increase to tens of millions. If this middle class scenario comes about, which is a “credible possibility,” a renewed opposition could mount a significant challenge to the Kremlin in 2007-2008.

Summary prepared by Rashed Chowdhury, Junior Fellow with the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment.