Elections in Russia

• 1. Introduction

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  Elections in Russia operate on two levels at once: a formal architecture of ballots, thresholds, and constitutional articles, and a parallel reality that international observers have called something else entirely. Since 1990, Russia has held seven presidential elections and seven parliamentary elections, yet only once, in 1996, did a presidential race require a second round to produce a winner. What does that statistic tell us about competition? And what happens when the observers sent to answer that question are turned away at the door? This documentary traces the structure of Russian elections, the parties and candidates who have shaped them, and the mounting body of evidence that the system on paper and the system in practice have drifted far apart.

• 2. How the System Is Built

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  Russia's Federal Assembly has two chambers. The State Duma holds 450 seats, filled by a mixed-member system where half the seats go through proportional party-list voting and the other half through single-seat constituency races. A party must clear a 5% threshold to earn any proportional seats at all. The Federation Council, the upper chamber, is not elected at all in the direct sense; each of Russia's 89 federal subjects sends two delegates, one from its legislative body and one from its executive, producing a total of 208 members.

  The presidency operates on a two-round model. If no candidate wins an outright majority in the first round, the top two face each other in a runoff. Presidential terms were four years until December 2008, when the Constitution was amended to extend them to six years, with a cap of two consecutive terms. The constitutional rules set the bar for who may run: a candidate must be at least 35 years old, must have lived permanently in Russia for at least 25 years, and may hold no foreign citizenship or foreign residence permit, either at the time of the election or at any earlier point in their life.

  In May 2012, President Medvedev signed legislation that removed one longstanding procedural hurdle: political parties were no longer required to gather signatures before running in parliamentary elections. Regional assemblies across Russia's 89 subjects follow the same mixed-member framework, with most regional and gubernatorial votes consolidated on the Single Voting Day, formally established by federal law in 2012 and set by default on the second Sunday of September each year.

• 3. Three Presidents, Seven Elections

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  Boris Yeltsin won the first post-Soviet presidential election in 1991 and was re-elected in 1996. The 1996 race was the only one in Russian history to go to a runoff, and a candidate named Alexander Lebed was the only third-party contender in any presidential race to break 10% in a first round. Vladimir Putin then won in 2000, 2004, 2012, 2018, and 2024. Dmitry Medvedev won in 2008.

  One pattern has held across every single presidential contest since 1991. The Communist candidate has finished second every time. Nikolai Ryzhkov came second in 1991. Gennady Zyuganov finished second in 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2011. Nikolay Kharitonov took second place in 2004. Pavel Grudinin did the same in 2018. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its successor, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, have made the runner-up position their consistent home, never breaking through to win, but never disappearing either.

  Parliamentary results have shifted more. The Communist Party held the top position in the 1995 election with 35% of the vote, and in 1999 with 24%. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia has oscillated between 5% and 15% across different elections. In 1999, three other parties each crossed the 10% mark: Unity with 23%, People's Deputies Faction with 15%, and Fatherland - All Russia with 13%. Unity and Fatherland - All Russia later merged into United Russia, which took 38% in 2003 and became the dominant force in Russian parliamentary politics.

• 4. International Observers Shut Out

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  Göran Lennmarker, president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, was blunt after the December 2007 legislative elections: the elections "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have. It was not a fair election." Luc Van den Brande, leading a Council of Europe delegation, pointed to "the overwhelming influence of the president's office and the president on the campaign," cited "abuse of administrative resources," and raised concerns about "flaws in the secrecy of the vote." His conclusion: "Effectively, we can't say these were fair elections."

  The Russian government did not simply accept that criticism. It prevented the OSCE from monitoring the December 2007 legislative elections altogether. In February 2008, the European Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights announced it would not send observers to the 2nd of March presidential election, citing "severe restrictions" on its operations. Christian Strohal, the organization's director, stated that "the Russian Federation has created limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election observation."

  Amnesty International added its voice in February 2008. Friederike Behr, Amnesty's Russia researcher, said: "There is no real opposition ahead of the election. There is no real electoral campaign battle." Amnesty's report described laws restricting non-government organizations, police breaking up demonstrations, and harassment of critics as part of "a systematic destruction of civil liberties in Russia." Freedom House concluded that Putin's party had won the 2007 elections "under patently unfair and non-competitive conditions calling into doubt the result's legitimacy."

  For the 2021 State Duma elections, the government headed by Mikhail Mishustin, which Putin had appointed, prevented OSCE observers from participating at all, citing COVID-19 restrictions to justify severely limiting their access.

• 5. What the Research Finds

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  A study by Enikolopov and colleagues tested the effect of independent observers at Russian polling stations in a controlled way. Observers were placed strategically at some stations but not others. At stations with observers present, United Russia received an 11% smaller share of the vote than at comparable stations without them. That gap points directly at the scale of fraud that independent monitoring could detect and deter.

  Research by Reuter and colleagues examined mayoral elections at the local level and found that candidates who opposed United Russia had their elections cancelled more readily than those who expressed support for the ruling party. Local elections, which might seem distant from federal power, turned out to be managed through the same pressure system.

  The V-Dem Institute classified Russia as entering a period of autocratization starting around 2020, tied to accelerating censorship. The Economist Democracy Index placed Russia in the authoritarian category by 2022. V-Dem's own scoring in 2023 ranked Russia as the 22nd least electorally democratic country in Asia, with a score of 0.209 out of a possible 1. Political scientists use the term "competitive authoritarianism" or "hybrid regime" to describe the combination: formal electoral institutions exist and contests happen, but the conditions for genuine competition do not.

• 6. The 2024 Election and Ukraine

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  The 2024 Russian presidential election drew international condemnation on a specific new ground: Russia conducted voting in territories of Ukraine that it militarily occupied. The United States said it would "never recognize the legitimacy or outcome of these sham elections held in sovereign Ukraine." The UN Security Council condemned the elections held in occupied territories, and UN deputy secretary-general Rosemary DiCarlo stated that "holding elections in another UN member state's territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity" and that such votes were "invalid."

  Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, released a joint statement on behalf of Ukraine, the European Union, the United States, and 56 other countries condemning the holding of elections in occupied Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's foreign ministry called on observers "to refrain from referring to this farce as 'elections' in the language of democratic states."

  European Council president Charles Michel offered congratulations to Putin before the election officially concluded, while noting that there was "No opposition. No freedom. No choice." That observation, from a figure who chose to acknowledge the outcome, captured the international community's contradictory posture: the vote took place, a winner was declared, and the 2030 presidential election is now the next scheduled contest on the calendar.

• 7. Local Power and Its Limits

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  Mayoral elections in Russia have contracted sharply. In 2006-65% of cities and municipalities held direct elections for their mayors. By 2018, that figure had fallen to 12%. Among the capitals of Russia's subjects, only 9 of 83 held direct mayoral elections as of the source's data, and as of 2023 only six major cities retained them. Governors have the authority to cancel mayoral elections, a power that gives the regional executive branch direct control over whether a city's voters get to choose their own mayor at all.

  The two local government structures that remain operate differently. The mayor-council model gives voters a separate ballot for the mayor and for the city council. The council-manager model places executive authority in a city manager who is appointed by and accountable to the City Duma, removing the mayoral position from direct popular election entirely. The shift away from direct mayoral elections in most of the country means that for most Russian city residents, the most visible local executive is now chosen through appointment rather than through a ballot.

  The evolution of Russia's electoral law tracks this concentration of control across decades. The 1993 Constitution declared elections to be direct, universal, free, and fair. A 1995 amendment required parties to gather 200,000 signatures and to submit candidacy applications no later than six months before an election. In 2003, the mixed-member parliamentary system was replaced by a fully proportional system with a 7% threshold, which reduced the number of parties able to enter the Duma. In 2013, Putin reversed that decision and restored the mixed system under the original Law 175, a shift that illustrates how electoral rules themselves have moved in step with the preferences of whoever holds the presidency.