RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Official name: Rossiskaya Federatsia (Russian Federation)
Location: Eastern Europe, North Asia
International organisations:The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum, The Commonwealth of Independent States, The Council of Europe, The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, The United Nations
Borders: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Korea (DPRK), Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, Ukraine
Coastline: Arctic Ocean, Baltic Sea, Bering Sea, Black Sea, Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk
Land area: 17,075,200 Km2
Population: 144,900,000
Ethnicity: Russian 81.5%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 3.0%, Chuvash 1.2%, Bashkir 0.9%, Belarusian 0.8%, Moldavian 0.7%, other 8.1%
Languages: Russian is the official language and is almost universally understood. Various minority languages have official status in the minority republics.
Religion: The great majority of the population are at least nominally Russian Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox Church has semi-official status. Islam, Othodox Judaism and Catholicism are also recognised, but other religions face official obstruction.
Form of government: In theory, a presidential democracy; in practice a dictatorship. Despite its official name Russia is not a true federation. It consists of Russia proper, divided into 49 oblasts (districts), and a number of Autonomous Republics, Krays and Okrugs, mostly ethnic enclaves in the Caucusus and in the eastern part of the country, which enjoy some autonomy. Under Vladimir Putin centralised control of all these entities has been greatly tightened.



Capital: Moskva (Moscow)
Constitution: The Russian Constitution was adopted on 12 December 1993. (This link also gives the texts of the 1918, 1936 and 1977 Soviet Constitutions.)
Head of state: President, elected by direct universal suffrage. The Constitution makes the President the effective head of the government.
Head of government: Prime Minister, appointed by the President. In theory the Prime Minister is accountable to the legislature, but the weak party system in that body means that in practice the Prime Minister holds office at the pleasure of the President.
Legislature: The Federal Assembly (Federalnoye Sobraniye) is a bicameral legislature. The lower house is the State Council (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), which has 450 members elected for four-year terms. Of these, 225 are elected by proportional representation from party lists winning at least 5% of the vote, and 225 are elected from single-member constituencies. The upper house is the Federation Council (Soviet Federatsii), which has 178 members who are appointed by the oblasts, republics and other administrative units.
Electoral authority: The Central Election Commission administers all national elections.
Freedom House rating: Political Rights 5, Civil Liberties 5 (Freedom House stated in 2006 that it no longer considers Russia to be a democracy)

Political history

Russia was an absolute monarchy until the revolutionary events of 1905 forced Czar Nicholas II to grant a constitution, which provided for the election of a Duma with a limited franchise. The Czar soon reneged on his promises and the franchise for the Duma was further restricted, although it continued to meet until 1917.

Following the first Russian Revolution in February 1917, elections for a Constituent Assembly were scheduled for 1918 to devise a permanent democractic constitution. In November 1917, however, the Communists seized power. The elections went ahead, but the Assembly was dissolved by force and parties other than the Communists were soon suppressed. Russia, as part of the Soviet Union from 1921, was a one-party Communist dictatorship for 70 years.

Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 and embarked on a program of "perestroika" or restructuring. The first semi-democratic election for the Supreme Soviet was held in 1989, but this served only to hasten the collapse of the system. Power passed to Boris Yeltsin, who was elected as President of the Russian Republic within the Soviet Union in 1990. The Soviet Union was dissolved at the end of 1991.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin

The new Russian constitution provided for a strong presidency and a weak legislature on the French model. Yeltsin was elected for a five-year term in 1991 and re-elected in 1996, but resigned at the end of 1999. He was succeeded by his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who was elected to a term in his own right in May 2000. Putin has concentrated power in his own hands and ensured that the media is controlled by his supporters. His authoritarian tendencies were reinforced by the legislature, which was dominated by Communists and reactionary nationalists. By 2006 most observers had concluded that Putin had established a de facto dictatorship and that Russia was no longer a democracy.

The weakness of the Duma has prevented the formation of strong political parties. It is striking that Russia has neither a mainstream conservative party nor a social-democratic party. The best organised party is still the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, an unreconstructed Communist Party led by Gennadiy Zyuganov. Others parties such as the Inter-Regional Movement are merely loose alliances of regional bosses. The forces of liberal reformism are (weakly) represented by Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko. Extreme Russian nationalism is represented by Vladimir Zhirinovsky's so-called Liberal-Democratic Party.

Human Rights Watch's 2002 Report on Russia notes that:

"Russia's new criminal procedure code entered into force in 2002, marking a fundamental break with the Soviet legacy in due process rights. But serious human rights problems eclipsed this important achievement. Federal forces continued to brutalize civilians in the ongoing armed conflict in Chechnya.

"Freedom of expression came under attack, with the government undermining the independent media and the security services persecuting journalists and scientists. State authorities did little to address racist assaults, and in some areas regional authorities led attacks on ethnic minorities. The government also failed to make any advances in addressing police torture and endemic abuses in the armed forces.

"Despite repeated government statements in support of a free press in Russia, independent media continued to face significant pressure, which limited ordinary Russians' access to information. Several critical independent media outlets faced libel suits and financial and legal challenges over ownership in which the federal government denied playing a role. A number of journalists were murdered or otherwise physically attacked."