Redrawing of Single-Member Duma Districts Sharpening Conflicts Now and Creating New Uncertainties, Shaburov Says

Paul Goble

    Staunton, Apr. 30 – The redrawing of the single-member districts for Duma elections this year ten years after the last time this was done is sharpening conflicts within regional elites who had gotten used to the composition of the district electorates and even creating new uncertainties about what the 2026 elections will lead to, Aleksey Shaburov says.

    The Yekaterinburg political commentator says that the changes Moscow officials have introduced because of population changes among and within the federal districts may look small but they are creating the danger of  “serious intra-elite conflicts” (politsovet.ru/84119-narezka-po-zhivomu-kak-cik-pereformatiroval-okruga-v-sverdlovskoy-oblasti.html).

    In Sverdlovsk Oblast, Shaburov says, the regional government was able to reverse Moscow’s plans to reduce that region’s Duma representation from seven to six but it was not able to block changes in the borders of electoral districts within the oblast, and those changes matter a great deal.

    He points to two in particular: the combination of two cities into one district which had been separate and the creation of four districts within the oblast capital by eliminating the areas and hence voters from rural areas that had been part of them earlier. The first puts two economic groups at odds, groups which had been used to having their own man in Moscow.

    But the second it more significant, Shaburov suggests. It means that rural voters, most of whom are loyal to United Russia, won’t be able to overwhelm more oppositionally inclined urban ones, especially in one district in the capital which is dominated by younger and others likely to be more opposed to the powers that be.

    Not only does that open the possibility that United Russia could lose seats but it guarantees that the oblast’s representatives in the Duma will be less likely to act as a group and more concerned about representing their specific constituencies, something that could affect how they will act as legislators.

    Of course, the Kremlin can always use administrative measures to ensure the outcomes it wants; but to the extent it hopes that its redrawing of electoral district borders will help in that regard, Shaburov’s words suggest that the center may be disappointed and that local politics within the region is certainly going to heat up.

    For background on this redrawing of election districts and the way it resembled the gerrymandering found in other countries, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/12/window-on-eurasia-under-putin.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/russia-has-its-own-form-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2016/02/russian-gerrymandering-and-other.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/09/moscow-gerrymanders-duma-electoral.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/12/window-on-eurasia-under-putin.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/02/window-on-eurasia-does-russian-need.html.