1999 Russian legislative election

Legislative elections were held in Russia on 19 December 1999 to elect the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. Like in the previous elections in 1995, the electoral system resulted in many parties competing for the proportional seats and a significant number of independent deputies elected.

1999 Russian legislative election

19 December 1999
All 450 seats in the State Duma 226 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	61.85% ( 2.53 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Gennady Zyuganov Sergei Shoigu Yevgeny Primakov Party CPRF Unity OVR Leader since 14 February 1993 3 October 1999 21 August 1999 Leader's seat Federal list Federal list Federal list Last election 157 seats, 22.30% New New Seats won 113 73 68 Seat change 44 New New Popular vote 16,195,569 15,548,707 8,886,697 Percentage 24.29% (PL) 23.32% (PL) 13.33% (PL) Swing 1.99% New New   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Sergey Kiriyenko Grigory Yavlinsky Vladimir Zhirinovsky Party SPS Yabloko Zhirinovsky Bloc Leader since 24 August 1999 16 October 1993 13 December 1989 Leader's seat Federal list Federal list Federal list Last election New 45 seats, 6.89% 51 seats, 11.18% Seats won 29 20 17 Seat change New 25 34 Popular vote 5,676,982 3,955,457 3,989,932 Percentage 8.52% (PL) 5.93% (PL) 5.98% (PL) Swing New 0.96% 5.20%   Seventh party Eighth party Ninth party   Leader Viktor Chernomyrdin Viktor Ilyukhin Sergey Baburin Party NDR DPA ROS Leader since 12 May 1995 8 July 1998 21 December 1991 Leader's seat Yamalo-Nenets Pervomaysky Federal list (lost) Last election 55 seats, 10.13% New 5 seats (inside VN) Seats won 7 2 2 Seat change 48 New 3 Popular vote 791,160 384,392 245,266 Percentage 1.19% (PL) 0.58% (PL) 0.37% (PL) Swing 8.94% New –
Winning party by region
Chairman of the State Duma before election Gennadiy Seleznyov CPRF Elected Chairman of the State Duma Gennadiy Seleznyov CPRF

Electoral system

According to the 1993 electoral law, 225 members of the house were allocated proportionally, using statewide party lists, while other 225 members were elected in single-member constituencies, using first past the post system.

To secure a place on the ballot, parties had to have registered with the Russian Ministry of Justice one year before the election (instead of six months in previous elections). As an alternative to gathering 200,000 signatures, they had the option of paying a deposit of just over two million roubles, returnable if the party won at least 3.0 percent of the list vote. In order to increase proportionality, the law provided that if parties reaching the five per cent threshold got in total 50 per cent or less of the vote, parties with at least 3.0 per cent of the vote would also win seats by declining numbers of votes up to the point at which the total share of vote exceeded 50 per cent. However, if after this procedure the parties winning seats still had less than 50 per cent of the vote, the election was to be deemed invalid. In the single-member district ballots, if votes cast against all exceeded the votes of each candidate, a repeat election had to be held within four months. As a result, repeat elections had to be held in eight districts. Finally, as an alternative to gathering signatures in support of their nomination, single-member district candidates were also given the option of paying a deposit of 83,490 roubles, returnable if they won at least 5.0 percent of the district vote.

Campaign

Liberal Democratic nominee Vladimir Zhirinovsky campaigning for his party

The early election campaign saw the initial surge in popularity of Fatherland-All Russia bloc, led by the Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, which tried to capitalize upon the perceived incapacity of President Boris Yeltsin and the weakness of his administration. The tide had turned on 9 August 1999 when Yeltsin designated Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister and his eventual successor. On 24 November, Putin announced that "as a citizen" he will support the recently formed pro-government bloc Interregional Movement "Unity", headed by General Sergei Shoigu, a member of all Russian governments since 1994.

Opinion polls

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	CPRF	Unity	OVR	SPS	LDPR	NDR	Yabloko	NRPR	Lead
VCIOM	12 Dec	24	21	12	7	4		8		3
FOM	12 Dec	21	16	9	5	5	1	7		5
ROMIR	10-12 Dec	17	17	9	7	5		7		Tie
ARPI	10-12 Dec	20.8	14.7	11.6	6.5	4.4		9		6.1
	24 Nov	Vladimir Putin endorses Unity bloc
FOM	20-21 Nov	29.1	11.1	15.2	6.9	5.5	1.3	11.1		10
FOM	13-14 Nov	30.1	10.9	19.1	5.4	5.4	2.7	10.9		8
FOM	6-7 Nov	27.3	10.9	21.9	5.4	5.4	4.1	12.3		4
FOM	30-31 Oct	25.9	9.0	22.0	3.8	5.1	2.5	12.9		3
	11 Oct	CEC forces LDPR to re-register as "Zhirinovsky Bloc"
ARPI	4-10 Oct	30		25		7	5	19		5
FOM	18-19 Sep	21		29	2	3	2	10	4	8
	4–16 Sep	Russian apartment bombings
FOM	4-5 Sep	20		23	2	5	1	12	4	3
FOM	21–22 Aug	21		27	3	5	1	8	4	6
	9 Aug	Vladimir Putin appointed prime minister
FOM	24-25 Jul	23		15	5	6	2	11	5	8
ROMIR	5–15 Jul	22.5		13	3.2	4.7	3.9	13.5	2.6	9
FOM	26-27 Jun	22		15	3	6	2	11	5	7
ROMIR	5–15 Jun	21.9		17.2	5.7	4.9	3.7	12.2	7.6	4.7
FOM	29–30 May	24		16	2	7	2	13	5	8
	15 May	Impeachment attempt of Boris Yeltsin fails in the State Duma
	12 May	Sergey Stepashin appointed prime minister
ROMIR	5–15 May	23.6		13.5	1.3	5.4	3.2	13.4	4	10.1
FOM	24-25 Apr	23		13	3	5	3	15	4	8
ROMIR	5–15 Apr	23.4		11.3	3.6	6.6	3.4	15.7	6.1	7.7
FOM	27-28 Mar	24		13	2	5	2	14	5	10
	24 Mar	PM Primakov cancels visit to the US over Yugoslavia bombings
ROMIR	5–15 Mar	25.5		9.6	0.9	5.2	2.2	13.7	4.4	11.8
FOM	27-28 Feb	26		16	3	4	2	11	5	10
ROMIR	5–15 Feb	23.1		10.6	1	4.7	2.3	11.9	5	11.2
ROMIR	5–15 Jan 1999	22.8		13.6	0.9	3.7	2.5	13.3	4.5	9.2
ROMIR	5–15 Nov 1998	25.1			1.1	3.5	3.6	12.7	8.3	12.4
1995 election	19 Dec 1995	22.3	New	New	New	11.2	10.1	6.9	New	11.1

Results

Party		Party-list			Constituency			Total seats	+/–
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
	Communist Party	16,196,024	24.78	67	8,893,547	13.71	46	113	–44
	Unity	15,549,182	23.79	64	1,408,801	2.17	9	73	New
	Fatherland – All Russia	8,886,753	13.59	37	5,469,389	8.43	31	68	New
	Union of Right Forces	5,677,247	8.68	24	2,016,294	3.11	5	29	New
	Zhirinovsky Bloc	3,990,038	6.10	17	1,026,690	1.58	0	17	–34
	Yabloko	3,955,611	6.05	16	3,289,760	5.07	4	20	–25
	Communists and Workers of Russia – for the Soviet Union	1,481,890	2.27	0	439,770	0.68	0	0	–1
	Women of Russia	1,359,042	2.08	0	326,884	0.50	0	0	–3
	Party of Pensioners	1,298,971	1.99	0	480,087	0.74	1	1	New
	Our Home – Russia	790,983	1.21	0	1,733,257	2.67	7	7	–48
	Russian Party for the Protection of Women	536,022	0.82	0				0	New
	Congress of Russian Communities–Yury Boldyrev Movement	405,298	0.62	0	461,069	0.71	1	1	–4
	Stalin Bloc – For the USSR	404,274	0.62	0	64,346	0.10	0	0	New
	For Civil Dignity	402,754	0.62	0	147,611	0.23	0	0	New
	All-Russian Political Movement in Support of the Army	384,404	0.59	0	466,176	0.72	2	2	New
	Peace, Labour, May	383,332	0.59	0	126,418	0.19	0	0	New
	Andrei Nikolayev and Svyatoslav Fyodorov Bloc	371,938	0.57	0	676,437	1.04	1	1	New
	Party of Peace and Unity	247,041	0.38	0				0	New
	Russian All-People's Union	245,266	0.38	0	700,976	1.08	2	2	New
	Russian Socialist Party	156,709	0.24	0	662,030	1.02	1	1	New
	Russian Cause	111,802	0.17	0	1,846	0.00	0	0	New
	Conservative Movement of Russia	87,658	0.13	0	125,926	0.19	0	0	New
	All-Russian People's Party	69,695	0.11	0				0	New
	All-Russian Socio-Political Movement "Spiritual Heritage"	67,417	0.10	0	594,426	0.92	1	1	New
	Socialist Party of Russia	61,689	0.09	0	30,085	0.05	0	0	New
	Social-Democrats of Russia	50,948	0.08	0	18,618	0.03	0	0	0
	Russian Ecological Party "Kedr"				112,167	0.17	0	0	0
	Russian Patriotic Popular Movement				10,481	0.02	0	0	New
	Russian Party				7,918	0.01	0	0	0
	Russian Conservative Party of Entrepreneurs				2,647	0.00	0	0	New
	Independents				27,877,095	42.98	105	105	+28
Against all		2,198,702	3.36	–	7,695,171	11.86	8	8	–
Vacant seats							1	1	–
Total		65,370,690	100.00	225	64,865,922	100.00	225	450	0
Valid votes		65,370,690	98.05		64,865,922	97.84
Invalid/blank votes		1,296,992	1.95		1,429,779	2.16
Total votes		66,667,682	100.00		66,295,701	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		108,073,956	61.69		108,073,956	61.34
Source: Nohlen & Stöver, University of Essex

Further reading

• Hesli, Vicki L. & William M. Reisinger (2003). The 1999–2000 Elections in Russia: Their Impact and Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81676-9

reviewed by Luke March in: Slavic Review 63.4 (Winter 2004), 897–898.

• Russian general elections
• Final report on the parliamentary elections in the Russian Federation, 19 December 1999 Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 13 February 2000.
• Ad hoc Committee to observe the parliamentary elections in Russia (19 December 1999), PACE Report. 24 January 2000.