Campaign to Collect Voters’ Signatures in the First Duma of 1993: The Main Results and Significance

Abstract

Collecting signatures of voters became a prerequisite for registering lists of candidates during the first multiparty elections in 1993. Studying the signature campaign, which has not received adequate coverage in the literature, is important for understanding political changes and the level of civic engagement in the country since the collapse of the USSR. This campaign also shows how various political forces used democratic procedures for their own purposes, which deepens the understanding of the peculiarities of the established party system of the Russian Federation. The aim of this article is to study the procedure for collecting and verifying signatures of voters in the elections to the State Duma of the first convocation as a necessary element of electoral reform, which was designed to promote the implementation of democratic principles of openness, accessibility and legitimacy of the first multiparty elections. The research tools include methods of historical (historical-genetic, historical-systemic), political (structural-functional, institutional) and legal (formal legal) disciplines. In general, the signature campaign for the First Duma, despite its shortcomings, has become an important democratic mechanism that allowed for the “pre-selection” of political competitors to cut off obviously weak participants in the election race and thereby minimize the loss of votes. Collecting signatures nationwide or in a particular region allowed electoral associations and candidates to conduct an election campaign long before its official launch. This new action contributed to the general democratization of the electoral process, opening opportunities for new parties and independent candidates, who sometimes did not have powerful administrative or financial resources. The collected signatures reinforced the legitimacy of political actors, which increased voters’ confidence in the upcoming elections and their direct participants. Verification of the subscription lists (albeit very formal) contributed to the transparency of the electoral process and the creation of conditions for political competition.