State Duma deputies on Friday gave preliminary approval to a presidential bill that would grant one seat in regional legislatures to parties that collect at least 5 percent of the vote.
The current threshold to win seats in a regional legislature is 7 percent.
But the election reform, one of several promised by President Dmitry Medvedev after United Russia's sweep of October regional elections sparked widespread allegations of fraud, will give "no real power" to the party with one seat since United Russia already controls the majority of seats in regional legislatures, said Lilia Shibanova, head of Golos, an independent nongovernmental organization that monitors elections.
Shibanova and Sergei Obukhov, a Duma deputy with the Communist Party, said the only opposition parties that would be allowed to pass the 5 percent threshold would be those that had been tamed by the Kremlin.
The bill passed in a first reading Friday frees parties that made it into a legislature from the obligation of collecting signatures in support of their candidates in subsequent regional and municipal elections.
A party that has seats in at least a third of all regional legislatures wouldn't need to collect signatures in support of its candidates for State Duma elections.
Parties that reach the 5 percent threshold would receive free coverage on state and municipal television and radio channels and have the right to nominate a representative to regional and municipal elections committees, according to the bill.
Shibanova said the bill violated a guarantee in existing election laws that offers equal conditions for all parties that take part in elections.
"This is not the way free and fair elections have to be held," Shibanova said.
Medvedev, meanwhile, has submitted a bill to the Duma that would restrict early voting, the Kremlin's web site said. Opposition politicians and election monitors have accused United Russia of using early voting to boost support for its candidates.
Meanwhile, early voting in March 14 regional elections started Friday in the Altai, Khabarovsk and Sverdlovsk regions and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, the Central Election Commission said on its web site.
In March 2009, the State Duma gave preliminary approval to a Kremlin-backed bill that would allow parties winning 5 percent to 7 percent of the vote in State Duma elections to receive one or two seats in the parliament. The vote came after Medvedev, in his first state-of-the-nation address in November 2008, proposed that small parties that failed to meet a 7 percent threshold of votes be granted one or two seats in legislatures anyway. The bill has been passed into law and took effect in May.
Meanwhile, most opposition parties, weakened by years of harassment, win less than 2 percent in elections.
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