Russian legislative election, 2016

Russian legislative election, 2016

← 2011 18 September 2016 2021 →
All 450 seats to the State Duma 226 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	47.88%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Dmitry Medvedev Gennady Zyuganov Vladimir Zhirinovsky Party United Russia Communist Party LDPR Leader since 26 May 2012 14 February 1993 12 April 1991 Leader's seat Federal List Federal List Federal List Last election 238 seats, 49.32% 92 seats, 19.19% 56 seats, 11.67% Seats won 343 42 39 Seat change 105 50 17 Popular vote 28,527,828 7,019,752 6,917,063 Percentage 54.20% 13.34% 13.14%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Sergey Mironov Aleksey Zhuravlyov Rifat Shaykhutdinov Party A Just Russia Rodina Civic Platform Leader since 27 October 2013 29 September 2012 17 April 2015 Leader's seat Federal List Voronezh — 89 Bashkiriya — 6 Last election 64 seats, 13.24% — — Seats won 23 1 1 Seat change 41 1 1 Popular vote 3,275,053 792,226 115,433 Percentage 6.22% 1.51% 0.22%
Chairman before election Sergey Naryshkin United Russia Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin United Russia

Sergey Naryshkin
United Russia

Vyacheslav Volodin
United Russia

Legislative elections were held in Russia on 18 September 2016, having been brought forward from 4 December. At stake were the 450 seats in the State Duma of the 7th convocation, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia. Prior to the election United Russia had been the ruling party since winning the 2011 elections with 49.32% of the vote, and taking 238 seats (53%) of the seats in the State Duma.

Prior to the election, observers expected that turnout would be low and called the election campaign the dullest in recent memory.

109,820,679 voters were registered in the Russian Federation (including Crimea) on 1 January 2016. Taking into account people registered outside the Russian Federation and the voters in Baikonur, the total number of eligible voters for 1 January 2016 is 111,724,534. The vote had a record low turnout of 47.88%, with just 28% of Muscovites casting their votes before 6pm.

Although the elections had been planned for 4 December 2016, deputies discussed the issue of rescheduling to an earlier date since the spring of 2015, with the second and third Sundays of September or October 2016 as possible alternatives. On 1 July 2015 the Constitutional Court of Russia accepted the possibility of conducting early elections to the Duma in 2016 under certain conditions. According to the Court, the constitution does not require the election date to be exactly five years after the previous elections and the election date can be shifted if the following conditions are met:

On 19 June 2015 the State Duma approved the first reading of a bill to bring the election to the State Duma forward from 4 December 2016 to the third Sunday of September 2016. The corresponding bill was adopted by the State Duma on the second and third (and final) reading with 339 deputies in favour and 102 against, with no abstentions. The document was put together by the speaker of the Duma, Sergei Naryshkin, and the three leaders of the Duma factions, Vladimir Vasilyev (United Russia), Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR), and Sergei Mironov (A Just Russia). The initiative to transfer the date of elections had not been supported by the deputies of the Communist Party, who called it an unconstitutional decision. Earlier, a similar opinion was expressed by the leader of the Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov. The September elections were not satisfactory to the Communists in part because the debate fell in August, "when one will be in the garden, the latter on the beach, others with their children" said Zyuganov. The Russian government supported the bill.

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