The Political and Economic Results of February 2014

February saw a sharp deterioration of Russo-Ukrainian relations in the aftermath of the bloody conflict in Ukraine that led to President Viktor Yanukovych’s flight into Russia and to the Crimean parliament’s refusal to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities. Russia’s authorities have so far continued to insist that Yanukovych is still Ukraine’s legitimate president, although his chances to return to power are practically non-existent. At the same time, it should be said that all this does not detract from the legitimacy of some of the Kremlin’s concerns about the situation of Russian-speakers in Ukraine and the autonomous status of the Crimea. In February 2014, Russia passed a new law on the election of deputies to the State Duma. According to this law, in order to register their party lists for a State Duma election, those parties that do not have a party representative in at least one Russian regional legislature will have to gather a minimum of 200,000 signatures. Also, the Law contains the requirement that candidates nominated by such parties in single-member districts should submit the signatures of at least 3% of voters in their constituency to register. The same requirement applies to self-nominated candidates in single-member districts. A similar draft law on regional and municipal elections was introduced to the State Duma. However, chances are high that the consequences of the new State Duma election law will be disappointing for United Russia, because a reduction in the number of election contestants will result in a smaller number of votes cast for those political parties that failed to pass the electoral threshold, and thus in fewer seats being redistributed among the parliamentary parties