On February 4th, 65438, the election of the sixth Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) was held as scheduled. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin voted as a voter at the 2079th polling station of the Russian Academy of Sciences on kosygin Street.

Starting from this month, Russia will experience two general elections, the sixth State Duma (lower house of parliament) election and the presidential election. Whether the ruling United Russia Party (hereinafter referred to as the United Russia Party) can continue to maintain its absolute superiority in parliament, and whether Putin and Medvedev can abide by the gentleman's agreement four years ago and successfully complete the transfer of power are issues of general concern to the international community. On September 26th, President Medvedev proposed that Prime Minister Putin run for the presidency on behalf of the All-Russia Party Congress. Putin immediately proposed that the All-Russia Party be led by Medvedev to participate in the new State Duma election. As a result, the biggest political mystery in Russia's current political arena dissipated, the protagonist of the presidential election appeared, and the curtain of the parliamentary election was officially opened.

The State Duma election held this month is the sixth parliamentary election held in Russia since 1993. According to the presidential decree signed by Medvedev on August 29th, the election was held on February 4th, 65438. There are 450 seats in the current State Duma, half of which are allocated by more than 7% of the parties in the election according to the vote rate, and the other half are elected by each of the 225 constituencies in the country 1 representative; There are four political party parliamentary groups, namely All-Russia Party, Russian Producer Party, Russian Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia Party, among which All-Russia Party is the ruling party, also known as "political party". This is because the party is inextricably linked with the ruling authorities. Putin personally served as the chairman of the All-Russia Party, and the chairman of the Supreme Council of the Party was Duma Chairman Gryzlov. Members of the party not only have an absolute constitutional majority in the Duma, but also occupy a majority in the legislative bodies at all levels of the country. In addition, 79 of the 83 chief executives of the main body of the Russian Federation are party member or his supporters. In the parliamentary elections held last week, the All-Russian Party, which has rich administrative resources and broad public support, really lived up to expectations and received nearly half of the votes. Although it failed to retain two-thirds of the seats in the constitution and lost the right to amend the constitution, its strong position remains unshakable. As a major event in Russia's national political life, the new Russian parliamentary election has at least the following three points.

Blow the prelude to the Russian presidential election

According to the current Russian law, the State Duma election and the presidential election are held every four years, with an interval of only three months. Therefore, the Duma election results are often regarded as the weather vane of the presidential election in March of the following year. Mapp's unexpected move in September made Putin the first politician in Russian politics to openly run for president, ending people's speculation about the next Russian president six months ahead of schedule. This decision has won the general welcome of the Russian people. I believe that Putin's appointment as president will help Russia maintain political stability and help Russia achieve development and revitalization. In this case, who else in Russian politics will jump on the stage to challenge Putin when he knows that his opponent has won? Even zyuganov, the leader of Russia's largest opposition party and a Russian leader who has participated in the presidential election many times, publicly stated that whether to participate in next year's presidential election depends on the results of the Duma election. This is inevitably worrying. Will the upcoming presidential election become Putin's "one-man show"? However, based on the author's observation of Russian politics for many years, the Russian ruling authorities will definitely try their best to avoid the shadow of "undemocratic" and "unfair" in the presidential election. I believe that before long, there will be other presidential candidates, just like bogdanov, an independent candidate in the 2008 presidential election, who was born on the eve of the election and disappeared immediately after the election. It should be noted here that according to the 2008 Russian constitutional amendment, the terms of office of the Russian President and the State Duma will be extended from the original four years to six years and five years respectively, that is to say, the upcoming general election will be the last of the two major dramas, namely, the parliamentary election and the presidential election, which will be staged in succession or even in shifts in the Russian political arena.

Set off the political atmosphere of Putin's future administration

Putin was in power for eight years, and the "Mapp Group" operated for four years. The ruling team with Putin as the core and the United Russia Party as the foundation has won the support of the overwhelming majority of the Russian people, and its concept of governing the country by seeking internal development and revitalizing its status as a big country has won universal recognition from all walks of life in Russia. In the campaign platform announced not long ago, the All-Russian Party reiterated the goal put forward by Putin in the government work report at the beginning of the year, and strived to make Russia enter the top five economies in the world by 2020, with a per capita GDP of more than 35,000 US dollars. In this case, the turnout rate of Duma election and the votes of United Russia Party not only reflect the Russian people's support for the ruling party, but also directly affect the implementation of the policy of governing the country of Pumei Group in the future. Therefore, in order to "win completely", the All-Russia Party tried its best to play three trump cards in succession. One is the leader card. Give full play to Putin's personal charm as a national leader, imitate the practice of organizing the "Support for Putin Movement" before the Duma election in 2007, set up the All-Russian People's Front composed of nearly 500 social organizations and groups, including trade unions and non-governmental organizations, and promise that people without party affiliation can also enter the Duma seat list of the All-Russian Party, so as to unite Putin's "fans" and support the All-Russian Party and "form broad participation of the whole people" (in Putin's words). The second is the youth card. Putin has repeatedly called for more opportunities for young people on various occasions, and new, promising and efficient young people should appear on the list of elected Duma members. Gryzlov, chairman of the Supreme Council of the All-Russian Party and chairman of the Duma, also said that the new Duma members will be upgraded as a whole. To a great extent, Russia's reform is centered on youth, which should be reflected in various fields. The third is the democracy card. In order to expand the representativeness of the Duma and attract more political parties to participate, the Russian authorities reduced the number of support signatures required for candidates of non-parliamentary political parties to participate in the Duma election registration from 200,000 to150,000. At the same time, they changed the practice of prohibiting the formation of campaign alliances in the 2007 Duma election, allowed political parties to "absorb and assimilate" other political parties to participate in the election, and lowered the "threshold" for political parties to enter the Duma, from the current 7% to 5% (starting from the next Duma). As a transitional measure, political parties with more than 5% but less than 6% of the votes in this election will get 1 seat, exceeding 6. The implementation of the New Deal has achieved immediate results. In addition to the four parliamentary political parties, three non-parliamentary political parties, including Yabolu Democratic Party, Justice Cause Party and Russian Patriot Party, all expressed their willingness to stand for election and easily qualified for election. Therefore, the sixth Duma election is the first election in Russia in 20 years in which all political parties participated. All walks of life are highly concerned, and the enthusiasm for participation is generally high, so as to warm up Putin's return to the Kremlin in advance.

Show Putin's unremitting pursuit of the Russian road

Putin has always advocated that a country should decide its own path of democracy according to its own history, geopolitics and specific national conditions. Many years ago, during his talks with Chairman Wu Bangguo, he made it clear that a country's democracy could neither be "exported" nor "imported". Over the years, Putin has worked hard to strengthen vertical management, adjust the relationship between the central government and the federal government, eliminate "oligarchs", strengthen the state's control over the national economy, formulate and amend laws, improve the political system of political parties, crack down on Chechen terrorists, maintain social stability, pursue strong and enterprising diplomacy, defend national interests, and actively explore the development path with Russian characteristics. The international community calls Putin's efforts "controllable democracy" and "sovereign democracy", while others call them "Putinism" and so on. The information released in this election once again reflects Putin's unremitting pursuit of the Russian road, which has attracted the attention of all parties. First, in the upcoming Pumei combination, Medvedev's weight as prime minister will increase. According to the Russian Constitution, Russia has a presidential system, and the president has super power. The prime minister is nominated by the president and appointed after deliberation and approval by the Duma. The president can dissolve the government at any time, which means that the Russian prime minister is relatively weak. Throughout the political evolution of Russia in the past 20 years, both Prime Minister Stepanklov, whose term of office is only three months, and Prime Minister chernomyrdin, who has presided over the government for six years, belong to "technical prime ministers" (the current Prime Minister Putin is an exception). This situation may change after this election. According to the preliminary results of the general election, the United Russia Party will continue to control the new Duma, and according to Mapp's agreement, Medvedev will take charge of the United Russia Party and become the new prime minister. That is to say, although Medvedev's appointment as Prime Minister is still officially appointed by the President and approved by the Duma, as he is also the leader of the parliamentary majority party, in Russia's future political life, Prime Minister Medvedev with strong political party support should have enough "confidence". Although his influence cannot be compared with that of current Prime Minister Putin, it is certain that Medvedev will participate in Russia to a greater extent than the previous "technical prime minister" and "weak prime minister". Second, Russia will have a political structure in which one party controls the upper and lower houses of parliament. Not long ago, matviyenko, a core member of Putin Group and former mayor of St. Petersburg, became the chairman of the Russian Federation Council (upper house), replacing mironov, former chairman and leader of Just Russia Party. In this way, the four leaders of Russian politics (President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Speaker of the House of Representatives) all come from one political party, and the members of this political party account for the vast majority in both the House of Representatives and the House of Representatives. This situation is the first time in Russian politics for 20 years. Some western media criticized the retrogression of Russian democracy and blamed "Russian-style democracy" for the possible changes in Russian regime brought about by this election. Washington post even commented that Pumei and Pumei will push Russia to dictatorship in the years to come. Here, we can borrow the poems of the famous Russian poet Chutchev to advise those democratic fighters who are teachers by example: "Russia can't rationally speculate, Russia can't be measured by a ruler, Russia has a unique nature and can only believe it."