Russia
In 1917, the autocracy of the Russian Tsar gave way to bolsjevist rule in what was to be known as the October Revolution. In the ensuing years, a civil war was fought between the communist Red Army and the tsarist White Army. The communists won and when Lenin died in 1924, Stalin ascended to power.
Population: 138,74 million
Area: 17 098 242 km2
GDP (PPP): 2 229 billion dollar (2010 estimate)
GDP per capita (PPP): 15 900 $ (2010 estimate)
Rate of growth: 3,8 % (2010 estimate)
Head of state: Dmitriy Medvedev
Head of government: Vladimir Putin
By means of his dictatorial powers, Stalin set out to industrialise the Soviet Union. During the 80s, Gorbachev sought to reform the economy and the politics of the Soviet Union. In December 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Boris Yeltsin, President of the former Soviet Republic of Russia remained in office until 2000, when Vladimir Putin was elected president.
Between the years of 1993 and 2007, elections to the lower house of the parliament – the State Duma – have been held five times. Presidential elections have been held four times. There are also elections to the regional legislative assemblies of the 89 republics as well as local elections to city councils. According to international observers, there have been no systematic attempts at altering the election results. However, a lot of criticism has been directed towards the election campaigns. There are repeated incidents of biased reports in the media, especially on television channels that are largely controlled by the state. Regional and local elections are especially vulnerable to such tactics.
Prime Minister Putin, who was also the former Russian president, has centralized power at the expense of regional and local authorities and he has strengthened the president’s position in relation to the federal authorities. Furthermore, the State Duma is dominated by the presidential party United Russia, which enjoys constitional majority (64 percent).
The Russian party system is weak. In 2005, the requirements for political parties were raised in terms of the number of members and the extent of local representation. In 2007, the parliament threshold was increased from five percent of the vote to seven. Concurrently, the election procedure was changed so that all the seats in the parliament were distributed according to party lists. These changes accentuate the inability of the fragmented opposition to successfully challenge the increasingly authoritarian rule.
The situation in terms of human rights in Russia is problematic, and in 2005 the oppression of the opposition had become so severe that Freedom House downgraded the country from “Partly free” to “Not Free”.
The Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation has a long history of cooperation with the democratic and market liberal party Union of Right Forces (SPS). We focus on strengthening the party’s local branches and improving its ability to recruit younger members. In a party merger in 2008, SPS ceased to exist on a national level. Ever since, the projects in Russia have been put on hold. Nevertheless, the JHF monitors the development in Russia in order to identify ways of strengthening the democratic opposition.
