# 1993 Russian legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Russia on 12 December 1993. They were the first parliamentary elections in post-Soviet Russia and the only time to the Federation Council, with future members appointed by provincial legislatures and governors.

## Background

The 1993 general election was taking place in the aftermath of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, a violent confrontation on the streets of Moscow which resulted in the dissolution of the previous Russian parliament by military force. President Boris Yeltsin hoped to resolve the political turmoil by decreeing for the election to the new Russian parliament and the constitutional referendum to take place on 12 December 1993.

## Electoral system

The new election law adopted for the 1993 Duma election stipulated half the 450 Duma members were elected by a party-list system of proportional representation, and half were elected as individual representatives from single-member districts. Every Russian voter thus received two different ballots. The proportional representation ballot required each voter to endorse an electoral organization or vote against all of them. By contrast, the single-member district ballot required a voter to endorse an individual, whose party affiliation, if any, could not be given on the ballot.
In order to nominate a list of candidates in the proportional representation ballot, a party or electoral alliance had to gather 100,000 signatures from the electorate, of which no more than 15% could be from any one region or republic. The method used to calculate the number of seats won by each party was the Hare method, with a threshold of 5.0 per cent of the valid vote, including votes cast against all, but excluding invalid ballots. To secure a place on a single-member district ballot, candidates had to gather the signatures of at least 1.0 percent of the constituency electorate. The winner in each single-member districts contest was simply the candidate with the plurality of votes, regardless of the number of votes cast against all.
Additionally election was held for the upper house, the Federation Council. Each of 89 federal subjects of Russia served as a dual-member district, with two most voted-for candidates winning. As the new constitution stated, both houses were elected for a two-year term.

## Political blocs

| № | Bloc | Abbr. | First troika | Political position | Ideologies |
| 1 | Agrarian Party of Russia | APR | Mikhail Lapshin • Alexander Davydov • Alexander Zaveryukha | Left-wing | Agrarian socialism / Collectivism |
| 2 | Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin | YaBL | Grigory Yavlinsky • Yury Boldyrev • Vladimir Lukin | Centre-left | Social democracy / Social liberalism |
| 3 | Future of Russia–New Names | BRNI | Vyacheslav Laschevsky • Oleg Sokolov • Vladimir Mironov | Centre | Youth politics / Social policies |
| 4 | Choice of Russia | VR | Yegor Gaidar • Sergei Kovalev • Ella Pamfilova | Centre-right | Conservative liberalism / Liberal conservatism |
| 5 | Civic Union for Stability, Justice and Progress | GS | Arkady Volsky • Nikolay Bekh • Alexander Vladislavlev | Centre to centre-left | Social democracy / Anti-Yeltsinism / Federalism |
| 6 | Democratic Party of Russia | DPR | Nikolay Travkin • Stanislav Govorukhin • Oleg Bogomolov | Centre-right | Conservatism |
| 7 | Dignity and Charity | DM | Konstantin Frolov • Nikolai Gubenko • Vyacheslav Grishin | Big tent | Federalism / Veterans' rights / Disabled rights |
| 8 | Communist Party of the Russian Federation | CPRF | Gennady Zyuganov • Vitaly Sevastyanov • Viktor Ilyukhin | Left-wing to far-left | Communism / Marxism–Leninism / Left-wing nationalism |
| 9 | Constructive-Ecological Movement of Russia "Kedr" | KEDR | Lyubov Lymar • Vladimir Chiburayev • Stanislav Baranov | Centre to centre-left | Green politics / Agrarianism |
| 10 | Liberal Democratic Party of Russia | LDPR | Vladimir Zhirinovsky • Viktor Kobelev • Vyacheslav Marychev | Right-wing to far-right | Right-wing populism / Pan-Slavism |
| 11 | Party of Russian Unity and Accord | PRES | Sergey Shakhray • Alexander Shokhin • Konstantin Zatulin | Centre-right | Moderate liberalism / Conservatism / Regionalism |
| 12 | Women of Russia | ZhR | Alevtina Fedulova • Ekaterina Lakhova • Natalya Gundareva | Centre | Women's rights / Pacifism |
| 13 | Russian Democratic Reform Movement | RDDR | Anatoly Sobchak • Svyatoslav Fyodorov • Oleg Basilashvili | Centre | Liberal democracy / Federalism |

## Results
### State Duma

Total seats :
| Party | Party | Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | Total seats |
| | Liberal Democratic Party of Russia | 12,318,562 | 22.92 | 59 | 1,604,785 | 3.04 | 5 | 64 |
| | Choice of Russia | 8,339,345 | 15.51 | 37 | 3,608,497 | 6.84 | 25 | 62 |
| | Communist Party of the Russian Federation | 6,666,402 | 12.40 | 32 | 1,848,888 | 3.50 | 10 | 42 |
| | Women of Russia | 4,369,918 | 8.13 | 22 | 309,378 | 0.59 | 2 | 24 |
| | Agrarian Party of Russia | 4,292,518 | 7.99 | 22 | 2,879,410 | 5.46 | 16 | 38 |
| | Yavlinsky–Boldyrev–Lukin | 4,223,219 | 7.86 | 20 | 1,854,447 | 3.52 | 7 | 27 |
| | Party of Russian Unity and Accord | 3,620,035 | 6.73 | 19 | 1,433,158 | 2.72 | 3 | 22 |
| | Democratic Party of Russia | 2,969,533 | 5.52 | 14 | 1,142,830 | 2.17 | 1 | 15 |
| | Russian Democratic Reform Movement | 2,191,505 | 4.08 | 0 | 1,038,068 | 1.97 | 4 | 4 |
| | Civic Union | 1,038,193 | 1.93 | 0 | 1,591,476 | 3.02 | 7 | 7 |
| | Future of Russia–New Names | 672,283 | 1.25 | 0 | 411,426 | 0.78 | 1 | 1 |
| | Constructive-Ecological Movement "Kedr" | 406,789 | 0.76 | 0 | 301,266 | 0.57 | 0 | 0 |
| | Dignity and Charity | 375,431 | 0.70 | 0 | 445,168 | 0.84 | 3 | 3 |
| | Independents | | | | 26,171,737 | 49.61 | 135 | 135 |
| Against all | Against all | 2,267,963 | 4.22 | – | 8,117,106 | 15.39 | – | – |
| Vacant seats | Vacant seats | | | | | | 6 | 6 |
| Total | Total | 53,751,696 | 100.00 | 225 | 52,757,640 | 100.00 | 225 | 450 |
| Valid votes | Valid votes | 53,751,696 | 93.16 | | | | | |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 3,946,002 | 6.84 | | | | | |
| Total votes | Total votes | 57,697,698 | 100.00 | | | | | |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 106,170,835 | 54.34 | | | | | |
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver, University of Essex, Boschler |||||||||

### Federation Council

Although the Federation Council was contested on a non-party basis, 11 were members of the Communist Party, six were members of Russia's Choice and nine were members of other parties.
| Party | Party | Votes | % | Seats |
| | Independents | 53,751,696 | 100.00 | 171 |
| Vacant | Vacant | | | 7 |
| Total | Total | 53,751,696 | 100.00 | 178 |
| Valid votes | Valid votes | 53,751,696 | 93.16 | |
| Invalid/blank votes | Invalid/blank votes | 3,946,002 | 6.84 | |
| Total votes | Total votes | 57,697,698 | 100.00 | |
| Registered voters/turnout | Registered voters/turnout | 106,170,835 | 54.34 | |
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver |||||

## Aftermath

The results of the polls proved to be disappointing for the Kremlin: the two competing pro-government parties, Russia's Choice and the Party of Russian Unity and Accord, gained 15.5% and 6.7% of the vote respectively and won 123 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. Neither party was able to control the parliamentary agenda nor impose the will of the president on the Duma. Lacking legislative success, both parties rapidly lost membership.

### Parliamentary groups

The use of the mixed system for the election of the Duma produced a large number of deputies which were unaffiliated with any electoral bloc. By joining other parliamentary groups or forming groups of independent deputies, they could significantly influence the balance of power in the Duma. Hence, the parliamentary groups in the first two-year term of the Duma showed lack of stability and its numbers may be given only with approximation.
| Parliamentary group | Parliamentary group | Leader | Seats |
| Liberal Democratic Party of Russia | Liberal Democratic Party of Russia | Vladimir Zhirinovsky | 53–64 |
| Russia's Choice | Russia's Choice | Yegor Gaidar | 47–78 |
| Communist Party of the Russian Federation | Communist Party of the Russian Federation | Gennady Zyuganov | 45–47 |
| Women of Russia | Women of Russia | Yekaterina Lakhova | 20–24 |
| Agrarian Party of Russia | Agrarian Party of Russia | Mikhail Lapshin | 50–55 |
| Yabloko | Yabloko | Grigory Yavlinsky | 27–28 |
| Party of Russian Unity and Accord | Party of Russian Unity and Accord | Sergey Shakhray | 12–34 |
| Democratic Party of Russia | Democratic Party of Russia | Nikolay Travkin | 8–15 |
| Liberal Democratic Union of 12 December | Liberal Democratic Union of 12 December | Irina Khakamada | 11–38 |
| New Regional Politics – Duma-96 | New Regional Politics – Duma-96 | V. Medvedev | 30–67 |
| Russia | Russia | I. Shichanin | 34–38 |
| Stability | Stability | A. Leushkin | 34–40 |
| Russian Way (unregistered) | Russian Way (unregistered) | Sergei Baburin | 11–14 |
| Strong State (Derzhava) (unregistered) | Strong State (Derzhava) (unregistered) | V. Kobelev | 4–5 |