Crimean parliamentary election, 2014

Crimean parliamentary election, 2014
All 75 seats to the State Council ; 38 seats were needed for a majority
	Composition of the State Council
Prime Minister before election; Sergey Aksyonov ; Independent	Subsequent Prime Minister; Sergey Aksyonov ; United Russia

Last updated March 21, 2019

Parliamentary elections took place in the Republic of Crimea on 14 September 2014.^[2] These were the first elections since Crimea's annexation into the Russian Federation earlier that year. The outcome was an overwhelming victory for President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.

The Republic of Crimea is a federal subject of Russia that is located on the Crimean Peninsula. The capital city and largest city within the republic is Simferopol which is also the second largest city of Crimea, behind the federal city of Sevastopol. At the last census the republic had a population of 1,891,465 .

The Crimean Peninsula was annexed from Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014 and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. The annexation followed a military intervention by Russia in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer serving as President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 2000 until 2008. In between his presidential terms he was also the Prime Minister of Russia under his close associate Dmitry Medvedev.

Background

After the 2014 Crimean crisis, following the passage of a secession referendum, which international community widely saw as illegal (See:International reactions to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation), the declaration of independence of the Republic of Crimea from Ukraine and the process of accession to Russia that followed it, on 11 April the State Council of Crimea approved a joint appeal from Crimea and Sevastopol's Legislative Assembly to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking him to bring forward parliamentary elections from 2015 to September 2014 "to accelerate the integration of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol into the system of government of the Russian Federation".^[3]

International reactions to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation have almost always been condemnatory of Russia's decision to intervene, supportive of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, while also supportive of finding a quick end to the crisis. The United States and the European Union threatened and later enacted sanctions against Russia for its role in the crisis, and urged Russia to withdraw. Russia has accused the United States and the EU of funding and directing the revolution and retaliated to the sanctions by imposing its own.

The Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Crimea was a joint resolution adopted on March 11, 2014 by the Russian-proclaimed Supreme Council of Crimea and the Sevastopol City Council where they expressed their intention to join Russia, in the event of a Yes vote in a referendum that was to be held on March 16. The participants were at the time subnational divisions of Ukraine.

Russia, officially the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, excluding Crimea. About 77% of the population live in the western, European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is the largest metropolitan area in Europe proper and one of the largest cities in the world; other major cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.

On 17 April Putin submitted a draft law on parliamentary elections in Crimea and Sevastopol to the State Duma, setting 14 September 2014 as the election date. On this day also election were held in 30 Russian regions and 14 regional (Russian) legislatures.^[4]

The State Duma, commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma, is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house is the Council of the Federation. The Duma headquarters are located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to as deputies. The State Duma replaced the Supreme Soviet as a result of the new constitution introduced by Boris Yeltsin in the aftermath of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, and approved by the Russian public in a referendum.

Electoral system

According to Crimean State Council Chairman Vladimir Konstantinov, the elections will be conducted according to a mixed system. Fifty deputies will be elected on Party-list proportional representation and 25 in majority constituencies.

Vladimir Andreyevich Konstatinov is a Crimean and Russian politician serving as Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea from 17 March 2014.

Party-list proportional representation family of voting systems

Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation (PR) in elections in which multiple candidates are elected through allocations to an electoral list. They can also be used as part of mixed additional member systems.

A first-past-the-post electoral system is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is sometimes described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates.

Russian Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov said that the commission filed a request for funding with the government for 400 million roubles to conduct the election.^[5]

Vladimir Yevgenyevich Churov is a Russian official and politician. Since March 26, 2007, he has been a member and the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Russia.

On 9 September 2014 Head of the Republic of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov announced that Crimean residents "who did not manage to obtain a passport of the Russian Federation" would be able to participate in the elections using their "Ukrainian local registration".^[6]

Head of the Republic of Crimea is the highest official and the head of the executive power of the Republic of Crimea; an internationally disputed federal subject of the Russian Federation located on the Crimean Peninsula.

Sergey Valeryevich Aksyonov is the Head and Prime Minister of the Republic of Crimea from 2014. which is an internationally disputed federal subject of Russia located on the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russian passport is a booklet issued by Ministry of Internal Affairs to the citizens of the Russian Federation for international travel. The Russian passport is distinct from the Internal Russian passport, which is a mandatory identity document for travel and identification purposes within Russia. Russian citizens must use their Russian passports when leaving or entering the Russian Federation, unless traveling to/from a country where Russian internal ID is recognized as a valid travel document.

Issues

The local Crimean Tatars had called for a boycott of the elections.^[4]

Opposition figures in Crimea complained that they were deprived of a chance to win seats because of "Administrative resource-tactics" that made sure unapproved challengers would have no chance of gaining traction.^[4]

Results

Only two parties overcame the election threshold: United Russia won 70 mandates of the Crimean Republic’s State Council 75 seats because its candidates won in all 25 single-member constituencies and it won 71.06% of the party-list vote; the other 5 mandates went to the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia who won 8.14% of the party-list vote.^[4]^[7]^[8] The voter turnout was 53.61%.^[9]

803 candidates had tried to win seats; 108 candidates in one of the single-member constituencies and the rest as candidates as member of 12 political parties.^[10]

Opinion polls

According to a poll by August/September 2014 poll by the Crimean Academy of Sciences the United Russia party would receive 95% of the votes in the 25 in majority constituencies and about 67% of the votes on the all-Crimean party lists.^[11] 10% of the other votes on the party list were predicted to go to the LDPR (most of these voters were believed to live in south Crimea), 8% to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (pollsters noted that their popularity (compared with three month earlier) was diminishing), 4.5% to Rodina and A Just Russia, 2,5% to Patriots of Russia and about 3% to other parties.^[11] The Crimean Academy of Sciences predicted a turnout of 80%.^[11]

Related Research Articles

The State Council of Crimea is the parliament of the Republic of Crimea. It had previously been called the 'Supreme Council of Crimea but changed its name in March 2014 following a vote by the Ukrainian parliament to dissolve the Supreme Council of Crimea. The Parliament is housed in the Parliament building in the centre of Simferopol.

The politics of Crimea today is that of the Republic of Crimea on one hand, and that of the federal city of Sevastopol on the other, within the context of the largely unrecognised annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014.

The Party "Soyuz" is a national political party of Ukraine that is mostly based in Crimea. It was registered in June 1997 under a registration number 867.

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Russkoye Yedinstvo was a political party in Crimea, registered in October 2008. On 30 April 2014 a Kiev Court banned the party "from activity on the territory of Ukraine". Party leader Sergey Aksyonov was instrumental in making possible the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. The party was based in Crimea, which has a Russian-speaking majority. The party was dissolved a year after the annexation of Crimea.

Presidential elections were held in Ukraine on 25 May 2014, resulting in Petro Poroshenko being elected President of Ukraine. Originally scheduled to take place on 29 March 2015, the date was changed following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Poroshenko won the elections with 54.7% of the votes, enough to win in a single round. His closest competitor was Yulia Tymoshenko, who emerged with 12.81% of the votes. The Central Election Commission reported voter turnout at over 60% excluding those regions not under government control. Since Poroshenko obtained an absolute majority in the first round, a run-off second ballot was unnecessary.

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The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. On 22–23 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an all-night meeting with security services chiefs to discuss extrication of deposed President, Viktor Yanukovych, and at the end of that meeting Putin remarked that "we must start working on returning Crimea to Russia.". Russia sent in soldiers on February 27, 2014. Crimea held a referendum. According to official Russian and Crimean sources 95% voted to reunite with Russia. The legitimacy of the referendum has been questioned by the international community on both legal and procedural grounds.

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is, de jure, an autonomous republic of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea, though, de facto, it was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014.

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References

↑ Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid
↑ "Russian State Duma appoints parliamentary elections in Crimea on September 14, 2014". ITAR TASS . 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
↑ "Выборы в Крыму и Севастополе пройдут уже в 2014 году". Rossiyskaya Gazeta . 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
1 2 3 4 Election Victories Strengthen Putin’s Grip Around Russia and Crimea, nytimes.com (SEPT. 14, 2014)
↑ "Putin submits law on parliamentary elections in Crimea, Sevastopol to State Duma". ITAR-TASS. 17 April 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
↑ (in Ukrainian) Crimeans in the "elections" allowed to vote with Ukrainian passport, Ukrayinska Pravda (9 September 2014)
↑ Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid
↑ United Russia wins 70 out of 75 seats in Crimean parliament — preliminary count
↑ Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid
↑ United Russia wins 70 out of 75 seats in Crimean parliament — preliminary count
1 2 3 (in Russian) "United Russia" surely wins the elections in Crimea - poll, Kriminform (8 September 2014)

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[1] Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid

[2] "Russian State Duma appoints parliamentary elections in Crimea on September 14, 2014". ITAR TASS . 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.

[3] "Выборы в Крыму и Севастополе пройдут уже в 2014 году". Rossiyskaya Gazeta . 25 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.

[Cpe14NYT-4] 1 2 3 4 Election Victories Strengthen Putin’s Grip Around Russia and Crimea, nytimes.com (SEPT. 14, 2014)

[5] "Putin submits law on parliamentary elections in Crimea, Sevastopol to State Duma". ITAR-TASS. 17 April 2014. Retrieved 16 August 2014.

[6] (in Ukrainian) Crimeans in the "elections" allowed to vote with Ukrainian passport, Ukrayinska Pravda (9 September 2014)

[7] Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid

[8] United Russia wins 70 out of 75 seats in Crimean parliament — preliminary count

[9] Russia's Central Election Commission Recognizes Crimea's Parliament Vote as Valid

[10] United Russia wins 70 out of 75 seats in Crimean parliament — preliminary count

[United_Russia_poll-11] 1 2 3 (in Russian) "United Russia" surely wins the elections in Crimea - poll, Kriminform (8 September 2014)

v t e Elections and referendums in Crimea
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Presidential elections	1994
Referendums	1991 1994 2014
See also Elections in Ukraine Referendums in Ukraine Elections in Russia