With big elections looming, Russian voting laws worry opposition

Nov 17, 2006, 12:21 GMT

Moscow - Russia's lower house of parliament Friday voted to eliminate minimum attendance requirements in elections, angering opposition groups that saw a ploy to ensure the establishment's monopoly on power.

The bill, if signed by President Vladimir Putin, will remove a provision demanding 20 percent voter turnout in federal elections.

Prepared by the parliament's ruling United Russia faction, the legislation also applies tough restrictions on extremist or nationalist groups, Russia's most dangerous political opposition.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian politics has had its ups and downs. The free-for-all chaos following the communist superstate's collapse has passed into a period of overwhelming apathy and increasing authoritarianism.

And given a current lack of mainstream political theatre, race- baiting anti-immigrant groups that advocate 'Russia for Russians' have come to seize the spotlight in recent years.

Both nationalist leaders and human rights groups Friday condemned what they saw as an attempt to snuff all possible opposition.

United Russia leaders in the Duma, however, defended the bill.

'If we have 19-per-cent voter turnout and a 20-percent requirement, we're violating the rights of that 19 per cent of the electorate,' Konstantin Kosachyov, a United Russia official and head of the Duma's International Affairs Committee, said on the party's web site.

With Duma elections to be held next year and presidential elections in 2008, opposition politicians like Boris Vinogradov, of the Rodina party, have called the measures a way of 'holding onto power longer,' Russian news agency Interfax reported.

President Vladimir Putin, due to step down when his constitutionally final second term ends in 2008, enjoys popularity that has effectively snuffed any opposition.

While the Russian leader himself is not aligned with any party, United Russia has made support of Putin into its ideology.

A poll released this week by the VTsIOM agency showed 51 per cent of Russians trust Putin more than any other politician. Second through fourth places are held by allies of the president.

Amid widespread resignation that Putin's handpicked successor will ascend to the presidency, many see the elimination of the 20-percent barrier in elections as a means to ensure a lack of voters doesn't spoil the transition.

'Many voters perceive (the bill) as an attempt by the authorities to make their own lives easier,' Interfax quoted Alexander Veshnyakov, head of Russia's elections commission, as saying.

Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and known for advocating repossession of Russia's imperial holdings - as well as of Iran and Istanbul - is the fifth-most trusted politician in the country.

But Friday's legislation would stifle that opposition, as well, outlawing the candidacy for elected office of anyone who has supported 'extremist acts.' The bill does not define 'extremist.'

Human rights activist Ella Pamfilova, a member of the government- backed Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society, feared the legislation would not only increase passivity among mainstream voters but further radicalize nationalist groups.

'Failing to get into the Duma, they'll begin to look for other methods to express their interests,' Pamfilova told Interfax.