Political Parties and Elections in Russia after the 2012 Reform

Abstract The article describes the party system and elections in Russia after the electoral and party reform of 2012. The number of parties has started to grow since 2012 and reached its maximum (75 parties) by the end of 2015. Then a steady decline in the number of parties began, and this process continues. Most of the changes in electoral legislation after 2003 were aimed at setting excessive barriers to candidates from getting on the ballot and parties from entering parliament, as well as reducing the transparency of voting and summarizing its results, but there were two short periods (2010–2012 and 2017–2018) when most of the amendments were aimed at improving the quality of elections. In the period 2013–2024, there were two campaigns for the election of deputies of the State Duma and two campaigns for the election of the President of Russia, as well as more than 200 campaigns for the election of heads of Russian regions and 200 campaigns for the election of regional parliaments, as well as a huge number of municipal elections. As a result of the 2021 elections, a fifth party, New People, appeared in the State Duma. The level of electoral fraud began to decrease in 2012, but increased again after 2020.