Eberhard Schneider, writing for the EU-Russia center, reports that the 12 pledges for electoral reform that Medvedev made in 2008 have now been implemented. And there are some in there which seem like pretty good news for Russian democracy, enabling some small shifts back in the direction of electoral diversity, and making it easier for smaller parties to get involved in elections. Here are a few of the achievements that Schneider quotes:

1. Putin’s seven percent hurdle that parties had to clear before being allowed to enter parliament has now been lowered. From the next election, any party gaining between five and seven percent of the vote can enter parliament or send two members.

2. Any party wishing to participate in the next Duma elections in 2011 will only need to gather 150 000 signatures instead of the previous 200 000 and this will be reduced to 120 000 signatures in the subsequent election.

3. The rule requiring political parties to pay a hefty deposit (60 million roubles or 1.5m euros) at the 2007 Duma election – in order to participate in an election has now been abolished.

In the list of 12 reforms though, there’s still one shocker of a negative reform – it might be easier to take part in election, but they’re going to be held less often than they used to be:

12. After the next election, the legislative period of the Duma will be extended by one year to five and the presidential period of office extended by two years to six.

I’ve written about the stupidity of running Russian Presidential elections every six years before, and it’s still just as bad of an idea. The Presidential election is the flagship election of any democracy and, particularly in a young democracy, a regular and fairly fought election is vital if the concept of democracy is to be truly entrenched in the public’s psyche. Six years is just too long a gap for people to form habit of democracy.

Tagged as: Dmitry Medvedev, Duma, Russian Presidential Election