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In December 1993, Russia held the most democratic elections ever in her history, or at least since Russian voters elected representatives to the Constituent Assembly in 1917. Unlike the legislature that was prevented from convening in 1918 by the new Soviet regime, the Yeltsin government, having imposed these elections upon the Russian voters, had to come to grips with a democratically elected body which might have turned out even more hostile towards the executive's policies than was the Supreme Soviet that was violently disbanded by Yeltsin in October 1993.
Before looking at the first post-Soviet election in greater detail, however, two similarities between 1917 and 1993 are worth mentioning. First, both elections witnessed victories of parties that were opposed to the government and its policies - the Socialist Revolutionaries pitted against the Bolshevik regime, and Zhirinovsky's "Liberal-Democratic" Party which is almost diametrically opposed to Yeltsin's government. Secondly, both elections laid the groundwork (aborted in 1918, of course) for a multiparty system in Russia whose flowering or institutionalization in the post-1993 Russian Federation must still await judgment. l
The fact that the 1993 elections were democratically held and the voters did accept the new constitution would support the argument that Russia is on its way to creating a state based upon "the rule of law,"2 but the outcome already cast some shadows on Russian politics in the near future that may have been confirmed by the 1995 elections.
Yeltsin had ordered elections to the new State Council (the Duma) and the Federation Council in December of 1993 in the hope of ending the gridlock between the executive and the former Supreme Soviet. In addition, he asked Russian voters to approve by referendum a new constitution for the Russian Federation and bury forever the legacy of the old "Brezhnevite" legal framework that governed Russia until October 1993. Yeltsin succeeded, albeit barely, in providing Russia with a new constitution which is a commendable and highly positive achievement. It has created a more stable political climate and regulated the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of the Russian government. Analogous to postWorld War II France in 1959, the new constitution, with its strong mandate for the president, created the second post-Communist Russian republic.3
The adoption of the constitution,...