Russia: GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS



Overview: Russia is a democratic federation of 89 republics and other subnational jurisdictions, each of which has its own government. At the national level, the constitution of 1993 calls for three branches of government—the executive, legislative, and judiciary—but it does not provide equal powers to each. In that system, the president of Russia has formidable powers as head of the armed forces and the Security Council. Those powers include the authority to appoint a wide variety of government officials without effective oversight or check. The houses of the bicameral legislative branch have offered only weak opposition because of their constitutional position and because effective opposition parties do not exist. The judiciary, a rubber-stamp branch of government under the Soviet system, has moved only slowly to assert an independent authority. President Vladimir Putin has used this structure to enhance the power of his office and dominate the government.



Executive Branch: The president, who is the head of state, serves a maximum of two four-year terms. The president appoints the prime minister (who is head of government), the head of the Central Bank of Russia, and the chairman of the highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court. Those nominations require confirmation by the Duma, the lower house of parliament (the Federal Assembly), although the president may dissolve the Duma if it fails three times to confirm a nominee for prime minister. A variety of other top-level presidential nominations, however, require no approval from the legislative branch. The president also issues decrees without such approval. Putin, who was elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2004, has further improved his position by introducing changes that limit the power of the two houses of the Federal Assembly and through the plurality of his party in the Duma. There is no vice president; if the president is incapacitated, the prime minister succeeds him until a new election is held.



In 2005 the government, headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, included 15 ministries, some of which are important policy-making centers. The three “power ministries”—Internal Affairs, Defense, and the Federal Security Service, which has ministerial status—are concerned with domestic and international security. The Ministry of Finance is the center of national economic policy making, and since 2000 the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade, which merged several Soviet-era ministries, has assumed a powerful economic policy position under German Gref. On many issues, the last two ministries are considered a counterweight to the “power ministries.” Also included at “cabinet level” are the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, and the procurator general, who is the chief prosecutor.



Legislative Branch: The Federal Assembly is divided into two houses, the Federation Council (178 members) and the State Duma (450 members). Members of both houses serve four-year terms. The houses have differing responsibilities; the Duma has the more powerful role of primary consideration of all legislation. Although the Federation Council has the power to review and force compromise on legislation, in practice its role has been primarily as a consultative and reviewing body. In the 1990s, the Federation Council was made up of the heads of government and the legislatures of the 89 subnational jurisdictions into which Russia is divided. In 2000 Putin increased his control of the Federation Council by replacing ex-officio membership with a process of appointment by the president. The Duma can vote no-confidence in a sitting government, but the president can ignore the vote and dissolve the Duma if a second such vote is taken within three months. Changes in the constitution require a two-thirds vote in the Duma. The Duma election of December 2003 gave a strong plurality to Putin’s United Russia Party, which gained three times as many votes as the second-place Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In 2005 the United Russia Party held 222 seats; the Communist Party, 53 seats; the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, 38 seats; and the Motherland bloc of regional parties, 37 seats. Some 45 members of the Duma and six members of the Federation Council were women.

Judicial Branch: The judicial branch has moved very slowly toward an independent role in the post-Soviet era. The federal judicial institutions are the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the Superior Court for Arbitration. Judges of those courts serve for life. The Federation Council appoints all federal judges on the recommendation of the president. The 19-member Constitutional Court passes judgments on compliance with federal law and the constitution and settles jurisdictional disputes between state bodies. The 23-member Supreme Court rules on matters of civil, criminal, and administrative law. It heads the appeals system, which begins with courts of general jurisdiction and includes district and regional courts. The specialty of the Superior Court for Arbitration is settling commercial disputes.



Administrative Divisions: Russia is divided into 89 subnational jurisdictions, each of which has two representatives in the Federation Council. However, those jurisdictions vary widely in size, composition, and nomenclature. They include 21 republics, 49 oblasts (provinces), 6 territories, 10 autonomous regions, 1 autonomous oblast, and 2 cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) with separate oblast status. The 10 autonomous regions and the autonomous oblast are part of larger subnational jurisdictions. In a first step toward overcoming the complexity of this system, in 2000 Russia was divided into seven federal districts: Central, Far East, North Caucasus, Northwest, Siberia, Urals, and Volga.



Provincial and Local Government: The chief executive of all 89 subnational jurisdictions is the governor. In December 2004, the selection method of governors was changed, increasing the power of the national executive over subnational governments. Instead of direct popular election in each jurisdiction, the governors now are nominated by the president, then appointed by the jurisdiction’s legislature. Within the 89 jurisdictions, the next-largest jurisdictional level is the rayon, which is approximately equivalent to a county in the United States. The president appoints the chief executives of the federal districts.



Judicial and Legal System: Civil and criminal cases are heard by courts of general jurisdiction, which are subordinate to the Supreme Court and function at district, regional, and national levels, with appeals possible to the next higher level. Military courts are included in this system. A second system is the arbitration or commercial courts, which hear business-related cases under the national Supreme Court for Arbitration. Some of Russia’s subnational jurisdictions have constitutional courts, which form the third court system under the authority of the national Constitutional Court. Although Russia has committed itself to thorough reform of the rubber-stamp Soviet judicial system, progress in that direction has been slow. Federal judges are nominated by assemblies of judges and approved by the president. The Ministry of Justice administers the judicial system, naming judges and establishing courts below the federal level. However, in the 1990s many judges remained from the Soviet system, and the judiciary became a roadblock for reform programs such as privatization and improved human rights. Funding of the judicial system has been problematic, and the minimal pay they receive has undermined the independence and professionalism of judges. Prosecutors have retained disproportionate power, and a very high percentage of criminal cases result in convictions. At the same time, President Vladimir Putin frequently has exempted government officials and wealthy businessmen from prosecution, even for very serious offenses. Under pressure from the European Union, Russia has not applied the death penalty since 1996, although it retains legal standing as a punishment. Beginning in 2004, jury trials have been held for the most serious offenses in all jurisdictions except the Republic of Chechnya. A new Criminal Procedure Code went into effect in 2001. In recent years, procedural irregularities have been observed in well-publicized criminal cases such as the tax evasion trial of oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovskiy (2004–5).



Electoral System: Suffrage is universal, and the minimum voting age is 18. The president and members of the State Duma are elected by direct ballot to four-year terms. The last presidential election (normally held in March) was in 2004; the last parliamentary elections (normally held in December) were in 2003. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2007 and the next presidential election, for March 2008. Half (225) of the Duma deputies are elected as representatives of parties gaining more than 5 percent of the vote, in proportion to the percentage of the vote gained. The other half are elected from single-member constituencies. The presidential election includes a runoff between the top two vote-getters if no candidate gains a majority on the first ballot. Direct elections also choose legislatures at the subnational levels, although the president has the power to dissolve such legislatures and force the holding of new elections. The president appoints chief executives at those levels.



Political Conditions and Parties: Aside from the Communist Party, a remnant of the Soviet era, Russia has had few political parties with national followings. In the immediate post-Soviet years, a wide variety of new parties espoused either some type of Western-style democratic and free-market reform or retained some form of the strong central government inherited from Soviet times. Parliamentary elections of the 1990s generally fragmented and weakened the reform parties, although Duma legislation in that period most often was the result of compromise. In that period, party configurations changed rapidly as groups merged and split. In 2001 the United Russia Party was formed, giving the Putin administration an effective voice in the Duma; that party’s triumph in the 2003 parliamentary elections enhanced Putin’s position. In those elections, the failure of any reform party to exceed the 5 percent minimum diminished the already weak political voice of the reform opposition. The major reform parties are Yabloko and the Union of Rightist Forces. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, led by Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, has a nationalist agenda that includes abolition of the federal system and reestablishment of the Soviet Union.



Mass Media: After strict state control during most of the Soviet era, substantial media diversification began in the late 1980s, and during the Yeltsin presidency (1991–2000) most issues were discussed openly in the press and in the broadcast media. However, as wealthy entrepreneurs concentrated media resources, nonpartisan reporting became increasingly rare. Television, which was privatized and expanded rapidly in the 1990s, is the chief source of news for most Russians. Virtually all households have a television set. The role of the broadcast media has been problematic during the Putin presidency. Since 2000 the Putin administration has exerted strong pressure on independent television outlets in an effort to recentralize the media after the diversification of the 1990s. By 2004 all opposition television news programming had been forced off the air, and topics such as the Chechnya conflict are treated from the government perspective only. The two largest national channels, ORT and Russia, are state-owned and reach more than 95 percent of Russia’s territory. Under new management, NTV, the last major independent television outlet, curbed its political commentary in 2004. The government owns the two most powerful radio stations, Radio Mayak and Radio Rossiya. As the broadcast media have expanded, circulation of newspapers has decreased because of production costs and competition from television.



Following the crackdown on the broadcast media, newspapers have been the primary source of media criticism of the government. In 2004 nearly all newspapers were privately owned. Three new publications, Kommersant, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, and Novaya Gazeta, have appeared since 1991. Besides them, the major national newspapers are Argumenty i Fakty, Izvestiya, Komsomol’skaya Pravda, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Moskovskiye Novosti, Pravda, and Trud. The Moscow Times and the St. Petersburg Times are major English-language newspapers. The principal news agencies are ITAR TASS, RIA Novosti (both government owned), and Interfax. Since 2001 several print journalists have been attacked or killed, allegedly because of their writings. In 2004 the editor of Izvestiya, one of Russia’s oldest newspapers, was forced to resign because of negative coverage of a Chechen-organized hostage crisis, and in 2005 the media branch of the state-owned Gazprom energy company purchased Izvestiya.



Foreign Policy: In the post-Soviet era, Russia’s foreign relations have gone through several stages. In the early 1990s, Russia sought friendly relations with virtually all countries, especially the West and Japan. By the mid-1990s, a nationalist faction discouraged relations with the West in favor of renewed influence in the “Near Abroad” (the territory of the former Soviet Union) and closer ties with China. The two contradictory approaches have defined Russia’s foreign policy since that time. In the mid-1990s, the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the first of two conflicts with the Republic of Chechnya strained relations with the West. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks realigned Russia with the United States, but new strains came from the continuation of the second Chechnya conflict, Russia’s support of Iran’s nuclear program, and Russia’s failure to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Meanwhile, Russia improved its position in the Near Abroad by strengthening relationships with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and maintaining bases in Moldova and Georgia. Progress was made toward membership in the World Trade Organization. The Putin Administration has attempted to balance expansion in the Near Abroad with preservation of positive relations with the West, which has looked with disfavor on Russia’s nationalistic ambitions. Events in 2004 and 2005 strained relations with the West. In that period, Russia’s perceived support of regimes in Iran and Syria, Western support for successful democratic movements in Georgia and Ukraine, and Western criticism of Putin’s policies toward Chechnya and the media were issues that damaged the bilateral rapport achieved in 2001. In 2005 Russia improved its relations with Uzbekistan as that country reversed its earlier movement toward the West.



Membership in International Organizations: Russia is a member of numerous international organizations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN, as a dialogue partner), Black Sea Economic Cooperation Pact, Commonwealth of Independent States, Council of Baltic States, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Group of 8 (G–8), International Atomic Energy Agency, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Civil Aviation Organization, International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Labour Organization, International Maritime Organization, International Monetary Fund, International Organization for Migration (as an observer), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Partnership for Peace, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Paris Club, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, United Nations Committee on Trade and Development, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, United Nations Security Council, Universal Postal Union, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization (as an observer).

Major International Treaties: Russia is a signatory to numerous multilateral treaties, including the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal; Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution; Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna; Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention); Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction; Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction; International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling; International Tropical Timber Agreement; Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer; Ramsar Convention; Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under Water; Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto protocol (ratified in 2004). Russia also has signed a number of bilateral arms control treaties with the United States on the limitation of strategic arms, anti-ballistic missile systems, and underground nuclear weapons tests and on the elimination of intermediate- range and shorter-range missiles.