A firm victory of United Russia at eight regional elections revealed the serious problems of its rivals.
Photo: Valery Melnikov
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Regions Surrendered Eight More Parliaments to Ruling Party
The preliminary results of Sunday elections to the regional parliaments have prompted three basic conclusions. First, nothing yet threatens the monopoly of ruling United Russia Party; second, the communists confirmed their status as the core opposition along with their inability to seriously struggle for power; third, the complete failure of democrats is obvious and the hope that some united democratic opposition will emerge by the federal elections of 2007 to 2008 doesn’t seem justified.
United Russia’s victory on the single day of the regional elections proved predictably convincing. Having won the majority both at the party lists and in the one-member districts, the ruling party has collected 55 percent of the deputies mandates on aggregate, according to the Central Election Commission.
In the actual absence of strong rivals (the breakaway from the closest competitors averaged around 20 percent), United Russia will have the over two-third majority in Khanty-Mansiysk Regional Duma, the simple majority in five more parliaments. The ruling party will have to lure a double of independent deputies to attain more than 50 percent in the Altai Republic and in the Kaliningrad Region, according to calculations of United Russia.
The communists were the second in six of the eight regional parliaments.
Complete failure of democratic parties at March 12 regional elections has cast strong doubts on their ability to build up a united front at the federal elections. Yabloko and SPS (Union of Right Forces) took part in seven campaigns, never competing with each other but acting either jointly or one party was backing another at elections. Regardless, the democrats have managed to hit the election ceiling in no region. The adequate result of 6.54 percent was achieved only in the Kursk Region. But even there SPS failed to win membership in the Regional Duma due the 7-percent ceiling.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 14, 2006
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