Today, suffrage is one of the most important rights of citizens, confirmed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. This is the basis of a democratic, free society, which can voluntarily influence the state.
The essence of the phenomenon
The modern concept of the electoral law and the electoral system of Russia was formulated in 1994 in the law “On Basic Guarantees of the Electoral Rights of Citizens of the Russian Federation”. This document has become a landmark. He determined the entire subsequent direction of development of the Russian electoral system to this day.
The concept of electoral law and the electoral system was laid down precisely in the mid-1990s. Then, for the first time, elections of a new type took place (the State Duma of the second convocation and the president of the country). The stable work of the parliament began. In 1995-1996 in many regions of Russia, general elections of mayors, heads of municipalities, governors, etc., were held for the first time.
Thanks to federal law, the democratic foundations of the organizational support of the elections became real - openness, publicity, and transparency of all actions and procedures related to them. The concept of electoral law and the electoral system of Russia includes a system of election commissions. It is they who are able to effectively solve non-standard and complex tasks related to the preparation and conduct of democratic, competitive elections. Commissions are a well-functioning instrument for exercising the electoral rights of the residents of the Russian Federation.
Electoral law
In 1995, considerable work was carried out to prepare new legislation on the election of members of parliament. Since then, several changes have been made to it, but its essence has remained the same. What is the right to vote in this area? The concept, principles, system were adopted from Western democracies in spite of the previous communist system. Although the Soviet system externally possessed all the attributes of democracy, in reality it was a screen that allowed a single party to carry out politics without a problem, which was being withdrawn from the Politburo.
The new concept of suffrage and the electoral system secured the right of citizens to make their own free choice of representative in parliament. The multi-party system that emerged after the collapse of the totalitarian regime of the CPSU was confirmed. At the same time, a 5 percent barrier was set for the federal parliament. The party, which wanted to get into the State Duma, was to gain the necessary number of votes for this.
In total, there were 450 deputies in the new Parliament. In the upcoming elections in 2016, half of the deputies will be determined by party lists. Another part of the deputies is elected in single-mandate constituencies. The territory of Russia consists of 225 such territorial entities. So in the State Duma are represented not only party, but also regional interests.
Public law
The modern concept of the electoral system and suffrage of the Russian Federation exists in two planes: political-legal and formal-legal. What is their difference? In a formal sense, Russian suffrage is the codification of legally recognized guarantees and conditions for the establishment of political freedom of citizens. Its significance is great: it brings certainty to the relationship between the country's population and the state. Suffrage sets the boundaries for government interference in society. At the same time, laws protect the state from criminal attacks by ordinary citizens who do not want to use legitimate tools in the political struggle.
The concept of elections, suffrage and the electoral system from the political and legal point of view is as follows: this is a catalog of obligations of rights that are mandatory for entities involved in the electoral process during its organization and conduct. Without these phenomena, it is impossible to imagine modern democracy. Therefore, for legitimate continuity of power, it is so important to designate in law the concept of electoral law and the electoral system of the Russian Federation. Does it include actions to organize and conduct elections? So it is, because it is through them that power is transferred and acquired.
Suffrage is also a branch of public law. It is directly related to political activity. However, suffrage affects only a small portion of it related to elections. There are other aspects, the essence of which is described in the Constitution.
Types of suffrage
In legal science, law is divided into objective and subjective. This division applies to all its forms. The relationship between subjective and objective suffrage is the relationship between the content and form of public political law. They are closely interconnected.
Objective suffrage is the source of subjective suffrage. It consists of several legal norms that determine the responsibilities and obligations of election participants at each stage. Subjective suffrage is in itself the right of a citizen to participate in the electoral process. For him, there are restrictions - the age criterion and qualification of citizenship. Although the right to vote in Russia was also in the Soviet era, those elections were very different from the modern model and had little in common with today's election process.
Citizens trust
Today, the concept, system, sources of suffrage are determined by legal norms established by law. It regulates political elections, which, in turn, form a legitimate authority. That is why in this area of law, the fact of citizens' trust is extremely important. Without the confidence of the country's inhabitants in the correctness of the system, there can be no established political and democratic culture. The correlation of the concepts of "suffrage", "electoral system" and other legal terms remains meaningless if there is no civic consciousness in society. Democratic instruments work only in countries where people feel like a source of power.
Since the collapse of the USSR, a new political culture has been born and is developing in Russia, which is designed to give the inhabitants of the country confidence in their own political significance. This is done in different ways: through the formation of younger generations, as well as the holding of new elections, referenda, and preliminary party votes.
Russian realities
In order for society to take a fresh look at Russian statehood, it had to go through a whole era of crisis development. This includes the rejection of the communist heritage, as well as the confrontation between the head of state and parliament in 1993. In that conflict, the interests of the executive and legislative branches clashed. As a result, it all ended in bloodshed in Moscow and the famous television personnel with shelling of the White House. But it was precisely after those October events that the country managed to adopt a new Constitution, which established the rules of suffrage. Citizens received the right to express their attitude to the main document of the country at a general referendum, which in itself became an important sign of political progress in the Russian Federation.
The concept of electoral law and the electoral system of the Russian Federation appeared along with other important features of the new statehood. First of all, the separation of powers and responsibility for their decisions to the inhabitants of the country was fixed. Today, the right to vote and the electoral process is an important function. They clearly capture the nature of power, its social dynamics. It is precisely by the state of suffrage in the country that one can determine the real, and not the declared, nature of power. This is an indicator of the state institutions, norms, values and legal awareness of society.
Dual nature
There are two important attributes that suffrage summarizes. The concept, principles, and system of this phenomenon show whether there is a legitimate tool for the exchange of power. Regular rotation in the state apparatus has always been and will be the most important characteristic of democracy. And only effective suffrage can provide it on an ongoing basis.
Another important sign is the many sources of democracy. Electoral technologies and their modifications are necessary in order to collect disparate parts of public sovereignty and delegate it to selected representatives. The bearer of power is every citizen. All together, the inhabitants of the country can distribute the sovereignty with which they are endowed among their chosen ones. Thus, a political public-law corporation of power is born (and then replaced).
Suffrage (the concept, principles, system, sources are the subject of our article) governs the use of important resources. This is the time in power, the methods of its use and endowment in a vast and diverse public space. The nature of suffrage is twofold. On the one hand, it is necessary for the normal reproduction of elected executive and legislative institutions. On the other hand, it itself must protect the state, for example, from claims to its monopoly right to use the institutions of power by various ethno-confessional, political and bureaucratic groups.
Selective Technology
Electoral technologies play an extremely important role in changing the system of relations within the government and the democratic transition to modern state forms. What it is? These include the procedures and rules by which a system of power responsible to citizens is built, in which the principle of periodic shift and rotation is laid down by default.
The most important elements of the mechanism of the formation of democracy are institutions that ensure the organization and conduct of elections and referenda. Their importance is difficult to overestimate. Elective democracy is the main link in the process of reform of one-party power. It lays down the social, legal and political conditions for the transition from an administrative model of power to an open, self-governing, competitive alternative based on the free will of citizens.
Suffrage and Constitution
The most important document for everything related to the election remains the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Thanks to her, the country has free referenda and elections. This document also introduced new terms into the lexicon. Thanks to the Constitution, the concept of “electoral corps” appeared in Russian.
This is a fundamental phenomenon. The structure of the electoral corps includes electoral law (a set of electoral duties and rights of citizens), legislation (legal sources of law). These tools are necessary for major changes in the country. In addition, the struggle for a particular electoral system and suffrage are one of the leading motives of state activity.
Thanks to the Constitution, a non-obvious process has begun and is still continuing at first glance. Society is separated from the state and becomes a full-fledged subject of political relations, a real participant in the political process, an engine for the transformation and evolution of power institutions.
Since the adoption of the Constitution, important changes have taken place. Now, every political regime that has come to power must reckon with democratic electoral conditions, especially if it wants to maintain its own power. Any alternative to constitutional order will lead to the decay of democratic institutions. Only according to the basic law of the country does the legitimate reproduction of the state take place, rotation, transfer and regrouping of executive and legislative functions within different interest groups and forces. Thus, without the Constitution, the concept of suffrage and the electoral system would be irrelevant today. Their ratio can change only in those ways that are allowed by the basic law of the country.
Democratic elections were the only way to get rid of the closeness and other signs of a totalitarian society, characteristic of the Soviet era. For the first time after a long silence in the 90s, people were able to openly declare their interests. Practice has shown that they are very different from the reality that the Soviet government offered.
The future of suffrage
Although the very concept of electoral law and the electoral system in our country has not changed for more than twenty years, some features of the electoral process continue to change now. Russian democracy is relatively young. She is still looking for an acceptable notion of electoral system and suffrage. As expected of the transition process, political and legal reform in the Russian Federation takes place in a situation of parallel and simultaneous search for a new structure of state power.
In legal construction, two aspects are combined - rational-bureaucratic and socio-political. At the same time, the system of public authority is improved and the regime of its stability, continuity and continuity is maintained. In Russia, at a transitional stage of its development, many people still do not trust representative democracy. Part of society is trying to live detached from the state without attending elections.
It is necessary to overcome this logic of mutual alienation and mistrust so that Russian democracy becomes even more effective. The concept of the electoral system and suffrage is incomprehensible to many citizens, and, not participating in the elections, they make them less legitimate, since the latter thus do not represent the entire palette of opinions of society. This is the problem of any young democracy. Participation in the elections is necessary for citizens for their political self-affirmation and awareness of the importance of their own decisions for the life of the country. Coming to the site, a citizen becomes a subject of state power.