Russia is Preparing for its First Parliamentary Election in the Shadow of War

Russia is preparing for its first parliamentary election since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In the three-day elections, votes will be cast for 450 seats of the State Duma as well as for local governments. According to the calendar of the Russian Central Election Commission, voting will be held on September 18, 19 and 20.

The election is being held at a time when the pressure of the war on the Russian economy is increasing and Ukraine's attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure are intensifying.

In his television speech before the election, Russian President Vladimir Putin called citizens to the polls and presented the vote as one of the indicators of support for the war in Ukraine.

Putin argued that participation in the election would show that "millions of people are behind" Russian soldiers and described the vote as an indicator of the country's unity and sovereignty. Reuters pointed out that the elections were the first parliamentary elections after the large-scale invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.

HOW WILL 450 CHAIRS BE DISTRIBUTED?

Half of the 450 seats in the State Duma will be determined by the votes received by political parties, while the other 225 deputies will be elected from single-member constituencies.

Approximately 111 million voters will be able to vote in elections where electronic voting is also allowed. On the same dates, elections will be held for governorships in 11 regions and for regional parliaments in 39 regions.

Russia is also planning to hold elections in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, which are internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory and declared annexed by Moscow. The Central Election Commission of Russia decided that State Duma elections will also be held in these regions.

One of the most striking developments before the election was the cancellation of the federal candidate list of the liberal Yabloko Party.

Yabloko stood out as the only political party registered in Russia that openly opposed the war in Ukraine.

In August, the Russian Supreme Court canceled Yabloko's registration on the federal list upon the application of the pro-Kremlin nationalist Rodina Party. While Rodina accused the party of receiving unregistered campaign support, Yabloko denied the allegations and described the decision as an attempt to push his political rivals out of the election.

Although Yabloko cannot appear on the federal party list, some of its candidates continue to compete in single-member constituencies.

UNITED RUSSIA HAS A TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY IN THE DUMA

United Russia, the main political force of the Putin administration, won more than two-thirds of the seats in the State Duma in the 2021 elections.

Reuters and Associated Press report that United Russia is widely expected to maintain its dominance in the parliament due to the current political conditions and the fact that a significant portion of opposition candidates are excluded from the election.

Among the prominent names of the party's federal list are Sergey Lavrov, who has been minister of foreign affairs since 2004, and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

War correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, who was seriously injured in a drone attack while serving in Ukraine, is also high on the list.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has remained one of the main political forces in the parliament since the 1990s.

Although the party, led by 82-year-old Gennady Zyuganov, criticizes some of the government's economic policies, it avoids direct opposition to Putin and supports the war in Ukraine.

When Zyuganov inspected the shipment of military supplies last month, he said his party was adhering to Putin's instructions.

VIKTOR BOUT IS ALSO ON THE LDPR LIST

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), one of the other important forces in the parliament, also strongly supports the war.

The party, led by Leonid Slutski after the death of Vladimir Zhirinovsky in 2022, is known for its nationalist and harsh foreign policy discourses.

Among LDPR's candidates is former arms dealer Viktor Bout. Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the USA, returned to Russia in 2022 in a prisoner exchange with American basketball player Brittney Griner.

Fair Russia and New People parties are among the other political formations represented in the parliament.

While Fair Russia supports the war in Ukraine; New People, who emerged as a more liberal and technocratic option before the 2021 elections, also supported the basic policies of the Putin administration after the elections.

Russian Communists, Pensioners' Party, Greens, Direct Democracy Party and nationalist Rodina are among the other parties participating in the election.

FIRST PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION IN THE SHADOW OF THE UKRAINE WAR

The election is being held more than four years after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

While Reuters reports that the economic effects of the war and Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory have increased anxiety among some Russians, it points out that most of the anti-war candidates were excluded from the election.

The Putin administration, on the other hand, presents the election as a sign of national unity and support for war policies. The new State Duma, which will be formed after the vote on September 18-20, will play a decisive role in the Kremlin's legal regulations regarding domestic policy and war in the coming period.