Elections in legislative assemblies of subjects of the Russian Federation on October 14, 2012 and the dynamics of regional party systems

The article is devoted to the research of dynamics of regional party systems in Russia at the present stage of their development. The data of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, the Center in Support of Democracy and Human Rights Helix, and also Internet sites of legislative assemblies elected in 2012 are the basis of the research. The amendments adopted in 2012 to the Federal Law "On political parties" created favorable opportunities for the emergence of new parties in Russia. This circumstance caused fear that the set of new little-known parties will disorient the voters, cause strong damage to the opposition parliamentary parties and destabilize the party systems of the regions. The analysis of the results of regional elections on October 14, 2012 allows drawing a conclusion that these fears are confirmed only partially. The majority of the new parties could not or did not want to take part in these elections. New parties received few votes; none of them joined the legislative assembly. Therefore, the Pedersen index of electoral volatility is low for the majority of the cases. However, the participation of these parties in elections has an indirect impact on the party structure of legislative assemblies. To clarify this influence the dynamics of the electoral support of the parties in the segments of the party system ("party of the power", parliamentary opposition, old non-parliamentary parties, new parties) was analyzed. In some regions new parties siphon votes from the parliamentary opposition (especially from the Just Russia), in others - votes from all parliamentary parties. But in the regions old non-parliamentary parties caused greater instability of the party system. As a result, the competition level between the parties in the elections (measured by the index of M. Laakso and R. Taagepera) decreased with the advent of new parties in half of the regions, and the level of fragmentation of regional parliaments reduced almost everywhere. It means that in the near future all the regions under study will preserve the "one-and-a-half-party" system and the United Russia hegemony in legislative assemblies.

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