ELECTIONS TO THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS OF SAINT PETERSBURG:THE EFFECT OF APPLYING THE ELECTORAL FORMULA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu23.2018.107Abstract
The article suggests that in the elections to the municipal councils of St. Petersburg there are laws relating to the “Duvergerian agenda”: the results of such elections are related, inter alia, to the nature of the electoral system used in them. One of the well described in the literature effects of the block vote electoral rule, which is the most common electoral system in the St. Petersburg municipal elections, is “sweep effect”: any political relevant group that can get a plurality of votes will tend to win all or most of the seats at stake. The focus of this study is on the results of the St. Petersburg municipal councils elections held since 2009. Special attention is paid to the municipal councils of the fourth convocation in the municipalities Kolomna and Sennoy Districts and the municipal council of the fourth and fifth convocations in the municipality Avtovo. “A Just Russia” has taken a leading position here, but not “United Russia”. The data on the results of the elections in this municipalities can be interpreted that the electoral system used in them gave a significant bonus to the leading party. The “sweep effect” was therefore manifested in the fact that “A Just Russia” won a vast majority of the seats in these municipal councils.
Keywords:
municipal election, electoral system, multi-member district, sweep effect, United Russia, A Just Russia
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References
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