The Moscow City Duma will largely preserve the succession regarding the previous composition and will still be loyal to the City Hall. This is the main result of the election to the Moscow parliament held last Sunday. According to the preliminary calculations, 28 seats will be taken by the UR deputies, 4 – by KPRF, and 3 – by Yabloko. The majority of the forecasts made before the election came true. The only thing that was hard to forecast was the emergence of KPRF in the second place, which was predicted to the disqualified Homeland Party. Experts believe that the discharge of Homeland helped the communists gain more votes, while the result of United Russia is considered predictable. However, not all analysts think that the victory of UR is final.
According to the preliminary data announced by the Moscow City Election CMTE on Monday morning, over 34% of electors took part in the polls. The first three parties after processing of more than 99% of voting papers were United Russia with 47.5%, KPRF – 16.75%, Yabloko – 11.11%. The single mandates were all won by the UR deputies. The final results of the election will be announced during the meeting of the Moscow City Election CMTE on December 7, however, it is already possible to say that the three parties will be represented in the Moscow City Duma - United Russia, KPRF, and Yabloko.
A week before the election, the majority of analysts claimed that the main candidate for the second place in the MCD election was Homeland Party. However, on the eve of the election day, the Supreme Court disqualified the party list of Homeland after finding that its TV advertisement clip sowed national discord. Eventually, the silver medal of the MCD campaign was won by KPRF, whose rating, according to the experts, has not been high in Moscow of late. The success of the communists is bound by many experts with the disqualification of Homeland. Some analysts agree that the discharge of Homeland could give a chance to LDPR as well. 'It is possible that if Zhirinovsky had not initiated a campaign against Homeland, he could have a chance to mobilize some of its nationalistic electorate' votes. However, he did not receive sufficient votes because he was the formal initiator of the Homeland's disqualification from the race', said chief of the analytical office at the Center for Current Politics Alexander Shatilov.
Another political force which was monitored by the analysts is the united list of democrats. However, the result of Yabloko in the Moscow City election does not seem optimistic. For separate parties and election unions the MCD election was a test, however, the new composition of the City Duma will not differ greatly from the previous one.
According to chief of the analytical office at the Center for Current Politics Alexander Shatilov, the federal and Moscow authorities managed to win a tactical victory in this election: the composition of the parliament is loyal to Yuri Luzhkov, and thus the energies of the opposition are restrained. However, the expert believes that this victory can have a negative impact on the image of the authorities. 'From the strategic point of view, I would not call this a victory. – said Alexander Shatilov to RBC Daily. – The federal power failed to weaken the positions of Yuri Luzhkov. It wanted this but did not take the risk fearing a more radical opposition in Moscow. Luzhkov did not win too much too: this was practically the first election, in which the administrative resource and the severe pressure on the Moscow electors were used to the full. Earlier, Luzhkov counteracted with the Moscow electorate in a consensus form, this time, the communication was tough. This might lead to worse relations between the Moscow authorities and the Muscovites.
Source: RBC Daily, 12.5.2005
