Concept

2007 Russian legislative election

Summary
Legislative elections were held in Russia on 2 December 2007. At stake were the 450 seats in the 5th State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly (the legislature). Eleven parties were included in the ballot, including Russia's largest party, United Russia, which was supported by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Official results showed that United Russia won 64.3% of the votes, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation 11.6%, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia 8.1%, and Fair Russia won 7.7%, and none of the other parties won enough votes to gain any seats. Although 400 foreign election monitors were present at the polling stations, the elections received mixed criticism internationally, largely from Western countries, and by some independent media and some opposition parties domestically. The observers stated that the elections were not rigged but that media coverage was heavily favoured towards United Russia. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that the elections were "not fair", while foreign governments and the European Union called on Russia to look for possible violations. The election commission responded saying that the allegations would be examined. The Kremlin insisted that the vote was fair and said it demonstrated Russia's political stability. The 2007 election were assigned exclusively from party-list proportional representation under a law adopted in 2005 on the initiative of President Vladimir Putin. He claimed it would strengthen the party system by reducing the number of parties in the Duma. In the previous elections half of the seats were filled using proportional representation and another half using the first-past-the-post system. It was also the first parliamentary election since 1993 that lacks the "against all" option on the ballot, and the first in which there was no provision for the minimum number of voters that must be achieved for the elections to be considered valid.
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