The electoral system and political parties in the municipal council elections of St. Petersburg

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with an important and insufficiently studied problem relating to the ways in which Russia’s authorities use electoral process rules in order to enhance their political advantage at the local level. The well-established Duvergerian framework of electoral system analysis applies to a new context: municipal elections in Putin-era St. Petersburg. One of the effects of the “block vote” electoral system, which is currently the most common method used in the St. Petersburg municipal elections, is the sweep effect, wherein a party with a weak majority of support nevertheless is able to win a large number of seats. From the data on election results in St. Petersburg it can be interpreted that the electoral system used gave a significant bonus to the leading party. It is noteworthy that the leading position in some cases was occupied by the opposition parties, which used the bonus provided by the electoral system.

KEYWORDS:

• Electoral system
• effects of electoral system
• political party
• municipal election
• the sweep effect

Disclosure statements

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We shall note that in practice many Russian voters do not use all of their votes, which transforms the “block vote” into another electoral formula, called a “limited vote” It seems, however, that if the number of votes used by voters on average is not much lower than the size of the district (as is usually the case in the municipal elections in St. Petersburg), then the effects of such an electoral system are close to the effects of “bloc voting.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yury Medvedev

Yuri Medvedev is an Associate Professor Department of Comparative Political Studies at the North-Western Institute of Management (Branch) of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. He received a Candidate of Science degree (PhD) in Political Science for his paper ‘The Success Factors in the Elections on Single-Member Districts to the Russian Regional Legislatures (2003-2009)’). His research interests focused on studies of political parties and elections under authoritarianism.

Inessa Tarusina

Inessa Tarusina is a political scientist focusing on Russian regional elites and public policy. Her main scientific interest concerns Russian elite’s transformation dynamics and elite’s interrelations. She is a Head of Department of Comparative Political Studies at the North-Western Institute of Management (Branch) of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.