Category Archives: Russia

Russia

SP in disputed areas and other territories (7) – Chechnya

The Chechen Republic was proclaimed in October 1991 following the collapse of the USSR and a referendum in the region. A constitution was adopted in March 1992. The constitution was semi-presidential. It is available in English here.

Art 71 (1) stated: “The President of Chechen Republic is elected for 5 years by the citizens of Chechen Republic by general and direct election of balloting.”.

Art. 79 states:
“(1) The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic bears the responsibility before the President of the Republic. The newly formed Cabinet of Ministers presents for consideration of the Parliament of the Republic the program of forthcoming activity for the term of authorities.

(3) The Parliament of the Republic can express mistrust to the Cabinet of Ministers that entails its resignation. The decree on this question is accepted by the majority of votes of not less than two-thirds of general number of the members of the Parliament of the Republic.”

It is unclear how long the constitution was even nominally operational. In April 1992 President Dudayev began to rule by decree and in June 1993 parliament was dissolved. For its part, worldstatesmen.org states that the position of PM was abolished from April 1993 to June 1996. So, we can assume that there was some legal basis for semi-presidentialism for a short period in 1992-93 and then again from 1996. In January 1997 there were presidential and parliamentary elections and Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was elected as president.

In 2003, following the Russian military campaign, a new constitution was adopted that formally incorporated Chechnya within the Russian federation. The text is available here.

The wording of the translation of the 2003 constitution is a little confusing. The president is directly elected (Art. 65). There is a government and there is a position of chairman of the government (or prime minister). It appears as if the president’s nominee for prime minister has to be approved by parliament (Art. 83 (3) (a)). In addition, Art. 95 seems to suggest that the parliament can dismiss the government, but the wording is very unclear.

My understanding is that the Chechen government in exile, i.e., the one that refuses to acknowledge the incorporation of Chechnya as part of Russia, continued to follow the 1992 constitution even after 2003. However, in November 2007 Doku Umarov proclaimed himself Emir. So, the 1992 constitution is no longer semi-presidential.

As you can see, the situation is complicated. So, any clarification would be welcomed.

SP in disputed areas and other territories (6) – Tatarstan

Tatarstan is a Republic of the Russian Federation. However, it enjoys a greater degree of autonomy than most other constituent parts of the Federation. In August 1990 the Supreme Soviet of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Social Republic declared itself to be sovereign. In 1994 a Treaty with the Russian Federation in effect ended immediate any claim to independence. In the meantime, in 1992 a constitution was adopted. As far as I understand it, a new constitution was adopted in 2000.

The 2000 constitution establishes a semi-presidential system. Art. 108 states that the president is directly elected. Art. 117 establishes a cabinet of ministers headed by a prime minister. Art. 118 states that Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan shall be responsible to the President and to the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan. Art. 89 (14) states that the State Council has to endorse the president’s choice of prime minister. This article also states that the State Council solves the question of confidence of the cabinet of ministers. This means that there is collective responsibility.

The president since 1991 has been Mintimer Sharipovich Shaimiev. He has been elected four times. Currently the prime minister is Rustam Nurgaliyevich Minnikhanov. He has been in office since 1998.

Previous posts in this series:

Republika Srpska
Anjouan
Turkish Republic of North Cyprus
Palestinian National Authority
Nagorno-Karabakh

Semi-presidentialism in the FSU – When did it begin?

The Former Soviet Union (FSU) is the home of a number of semi-presidential countries. In terms of their current constitutions, there are some unequivocal cases of semi-presidentialism: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine. Previously, Moldova was unequivocally semi-presidential too. The situation in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is a little more ambiguous. In both cases, parliament ratifies the president’s decrees that appoint and dismiss the prime minister. It is debatable as to whether this is sufficient to constitute a semi-presidential constitution. The level of responsibility to parliament is low and, in any case, responsibility is only individual and not collective.

Sticking to the unequivocal cases, the question is when do we date the start of semi-presidentialism? In the case of Georgia, the answer is easy. As per a previous post, it became semi-presidential in 2004 after a constitutional amendment. For the other countries, the dates of the first independence constitutions are as follows: Armenia (1995), Azerbaijan (1995), Belarus (1994), Kazakhstan (1993), Kyrgyzstan (1993), Lithuania (1992), Moldova (1994), Russia (1993) and Ukraine (1996).

While these are the dates of the first constitutions, it is common to think of semi-presidentialism starting earlier. This is because in the period immediately following the declaration of independence, and prior to the passage of the new constitution, most of these countries grafted a directly elected president onto the existing Soviet-era constitution. So, for example, the first presidential elections under Soviet-era constitutions were held as follows: Armenia (1991), Azerbaijan (1992), Kazakhstan (1991), Kyrgyzstan (1991), Moldova (1991), Russia (1991) and Ukraine (1991). Given these constitutions were, nominally, parliamentary, this combination of a direct presidential election and a parliamentary system seems to create the conditions for semi-presidentialism. (In Belarus and Lithuania, the first direct presidential elections took place under the first independence constitution. So, there is no doubt about when they began to be semi-presidential.)

All the same, I think we have to be a little careful as to when we date the beginning of semi-presidentialism and for two reasons. Firstly, I am not sure that there are consolidated constitutional documents prior to the passage of the first constitutions. Certainly, I have been unable to find them. If they do exist, then please let me know where to get hold of them. In the absence of a consolidated document, it is to difficult to verify the start date of semi-presidentialism. Secondly, even if there were consolidated documents, would they indicate semi-presidentialism? According to the 1978 constitutions of the socialist republics of the USSR, it is certainly the case that the Council of Ministers was responsible to the parliament (Supreme Soviet) and that there was a person who occupied the position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Moreover, prime ministers certainly existed in the newly independent countries from an early point: Armenia (1990), Azerbaijan (1991), Kazakhstan (1991), Kyrgyzstan (1991), Moldova (1990), Russia (1991) and Ukraine (1990). Again, though, in the absence of consolidated documents, it is difficult to verify the specific start date of semi-presidentialismism. Were there other amendments to the constitution apart from just the direct election of the president? Were there changes to the status of the prime minister and cabinet? And so on.

The precise start date of semi-presidentialism can be important because a couple of these countries experienced a brief period of democracy but then collapsed. For example, according to Freedom House Azerbaijan was a partial democracy in 1991 and 1992, but collapsed in 1993. The same is true for Kazakhstan from 1991-93 before its collapse in 1994. Studies about the positive or negative effects of semi-presidentialism on partial democracies do not have a large number of cases to go on. Therefore, the decision about whether or not to include two collapses is potentially important. If anyone has any comments, then please let me know.

Russia – Presidential inauguration and appointment of PM

In geopolitical terms, it was remiss of me to prioritise the change of government in Ireland ahead of the change in Russia, but hopefully I may be forgiven a little localism just this once and, in any case, the change in Russia is arguably hardly a change at all.

On 7 May Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as Russian president. RFE/RL has a report on the changing nature of Russian presidential inaugurations since 1991. In short, they have become much more lavish affairs and now include an inaugural speech.

On 8 May Vladimir Putin’s nomination as prime minister by Medvedev was approved by 392 votes to 56. Putin was supported by the party he now heads, the United Russia party, as well as by the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and A Just Russia. Only the communists opposed him. RFE/RL also reports, interestingly, that some of Putin’s last decisions as president involved strengthening the power of the prime minister. They report that he “signed decrees that make regional governors accountable to the prime minister, rather than to the president. He has also transferred some key members of his presidential administration to the prime minister’s office”.

Russia – Weak president, strong PM (for a while at least)

The Eurasia Daily Monitor has published a speculative but interesting article about the shape of executive politics in Russia in the years to come.

The speculation that outgoing president, Vladimir Putin, will be able to wield considerable power as PM, assuming he is nominated to that position by incoming President Dmitry Medvedev, is not new. However, the article reports an idea that is being floated whereby President Medvedev will resign after less than two years in office, thus forcing a new presidential election. At the election, Putin would be elected and there would be a return to the status quo ante.

One of the reasons why this idea is being given some credence is that Putin recently stated that there should be a longer interval between presidential and parliamentary elections. If presidential elections were to be held in 2009, then there would be a two-year gap between that election and the next scheduled parliamentary election in 2011 and then a further two-year gap to the 2013 presidential election. This would space out the elections more evenly. Currently, there is quite a long gap until the next parliamentary election in late 2011 with the next presidential election following on soon after in early 2012.

If President Medvedev were to resign early, then this would avoid having to change the constitution to bring about this situation.

Election results – Russia (presidential)

The Russian presidential election was held yesterday.

There were four candidates. The preliminary results from the Russian Central Election Commission are:

Dmitry Mevedev 70.24%
Gennady Zyuganov 17.75%
Vladimir Zhirinovsky 9.36%
Andrei Bogdanov 1.30%

Putin – From President to PM

The election of Dmitri Medvedev as the new President of the Russian Federation was accompanied by confirmation that former president, Vladimir Putin, would serve as the prime minister in the new administration.

In countries with semi-presidential constitutions, I can think of only one other case where the outgoing president has served as prime minister under the incoming president and that is Timor-Leste. Here, Jose Gusmao was president from May 2002 to May 2007 before serving as prime minister since this time. Indeed, the East Timor case is particularly unusual because Jose Ramos-Horta was Prime Minister from 2006-2007 before being elected President. This is the only case I know where in a semi-presidential democracy the two most senior incumbents have swapped offices.

There are a small number of examples of prime ministers being elected as president without a gap in between the two offices. Examples include Mario Soares in Portugal, though technically there was a small gap here as he resigned as PM in November 1985 and took office as president in March 1986; and Janez Drnovsek, who was PM in Slovenia from November 2000 until December 2002 when he took up his post as president. Obviously, there are many more cases where prime ministers have been elected president with a gap in between. Examples include Stipe Mesic in Croatia, Jacques Chirac in France, Rolandas Paksas in Lithuania, Nambaryn Enkhbayar in Mongolia, and Victor Yushchenko in Ukraine.

It is hardly surprising that there are more examples of former PMs being elected as president, after all usually the presidency is the only position that is more important than the prime ministership and so prime ministers often have a natural ambition to try to win the top office. Indeed, there was a book published in France in the 1980s that identified a prime ministerial Oedipus complex – as soon as the prime minister was appointed they wanted to kill the father (politically, of course) and assume the top job for themselves. (Pierre Servent, Oedipe à Matignon, Paris: Balland, 1989).

If anyone can think of any other examples of presidents and prime ministers swapping positions, or of outgoing presidents moving to the post of prime minister, or vice versa, then please leave a comment.