The second State Duma was formed in the Russian Federation in 1995. This was the 2nd democratic election to the lower house of the Federal Assembly in the country's history after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her powers began on December 17, 1995, and ended on January 18, 2000. Moreover, the meetings were held from January 1996 to December 1999.
Elections
Elections to the second State Duma were held on December 17. They aroused great interest among socio-political structures and associations. In total, 69 blocks or parties took part in them. 43 managed to get registered in the Central Election Commission.
The elections of the second State Duma of the Russian Federation were held according to a mixed system. In total, about five thousand seven hundred candidates ran for the 225 seats in the single federal electoral district. The remaining 225 seats were distributed in single-mandate constituencies. About two thousand six hundred people advanced on them.
In order to get into parliament, parties and associations had to overcome the five percent barrier.
According to official figures, the turnout was almost 65%. In absolute terms, almost one hundred and seven and a half million people came to the polls, which was one and a quarter percent more than in the elections for the first convocation two years earlier. At the same time, 2.8% of voters voted against all candidates, almost two percent of citizens spoiled ballots.
results
According to the party list, only four parties went to the second State Duma, which managed to overcome the five percent barrier.
At once 26 electoral associations and parties out of 43 did not get even one percent of the vote. Among them were such original participants as the Party of Beer Lovers (0.62%), the block of Dzhuna (famous healer Yevgenia Davitashvili, 0.47%), the party "The Case of Peter the Great" (0.21%).
Among those who showed a relatively high result for themselves, but still could not get into parliament, there was the Derzhava movement, which was headed by Rutskoi. He managed to gain about 2.5%. More than four percent were won by the Congress of Russian Communities Skokov, Lebed and Glazyev, the electoral bloc "Communists - Labor Russia - For the Soviet Union", the party "Women of Russia".
As a result, the fourth place in the State Duma of the second convocation was taken by the Yabloko party, which received almost seven percent of the vote. The three leaders were closed by the block “Our Home - Russia” led by Chernomyrdin (10.1%), the LDPR took second place with a result of 11.1%.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation won a landslide victory. More than 22% of voters voted for supporters of Gennady Zyuganov. This is almost 15.5 million people.
The situation in single-member districts
Moreover, the situation in single-member districts is different. The majority of the mandates were received by the Communists - 58. But the second was the members of the Agrarian Party of Russia, which scored only 3.8% according to the lists. They got 20 seats in parliament. The third was the Yabloko party, which managed to hold 14 of its candidates. Further, the mandates for single-mandate constituencies were distributed as follows: 10 for the block "Our home is Russia", 9 for the "Democratic choice of Russia" and the block "Power for the people!" 5 from the Congress of Russian Communities, 3 each from the movements "Women of Russia" and "Forward, Russia!" and the block of Ivan Rybkin, 2 places in the Duma get the block "Pamfilova - Gurov - Vladimir Lysenko".
Finally, one candidate each won from the LDPR, PRES, and the Workers' Self-Government Party. Blocks of Stanislav Govorukhin, Independents, "89 regions of Russia", "Communists - Labor Russia - For the Soviet Union", "Common cause", "My Fatherland", "Labor Union", Transfiguration of the Fatherland ".
Summing up, the Communists got 157 seats in parliament, and the second place was taken by representatives of the Our Home - Russia bloc with 55 seats, 51 in the Liberal Democratic Party, 45 in Yabloko.
How did the regions vote?
The distribution of votes by region once again proved that individual parties and movements have regions and republics in which they traditionally gain a lot of votes.
For example, the Communists received almost 52% of the vote in North Ossetia, more than 40 - in the Kemerovo, Oryol, Tambov regions. And also in the republics of Dagestan, Adygea and Karachay-Cherkessia. At the same time, the Communist Party failed the campaign in Ingushetia and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, where it received a little more than 5 percent.
LDPR showed the most outstanding result in the Magadan region, receiving more than 22%. At the same time, in Dagestan, supporters of Vladimir Zhirinovsky did not reach the mark of even one percent.
The Our Home - Russia bloc won a landslide victory in Chechnya with a result of more than 48%, more than 34% voted for Chernomyrdin’s movement in Ingushetia. The worst results were in Primorye, Kemerovo and Amur regions - about 3.5%.
The Yabloko party received more than 20% in Kamchatka, won the election in St. Petersburg from 16%. At the same time, only 0.5% of voters supported Yavlinsky's party in Dagestan.
The Agrarian Party of Russia was successful in the Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug, winning with a result of more than 32%.
The first and second State Duma demonstrated the maximum interest in the elections on the part of socio-political blocs and movements. Such a number of participants was no longer in any elections in modern Russia.
Parliament work
The work of the second State Duma was quite fruitful. In total, more than a thousand federal laws were passed by people's deputies. The second State Duma ratified more than two hundred projects, including agreements and bilateral treaties, international conventions. In total, during the work of the parliament, 1, 730 bills were under consideration.
Conducting an analysis of the activities of deputies, we can conclude that special attention was focused on social issues and foreign policy. An important place in the work was taken by the approved federal constitutional laws: on the federal government, the judicial system, military courts, and the Commissioner for Human Rights. The Budget Code, the first part of the Tax Code and the second Civil Code were also adopted.
Economic laws, which the State Duma considered in the second reading and then approved in the final, were aimed at providing the state with opportunities to intervene in the economy at all levels. Mostly they were supposed to increase government spending. Many decisions were of a political nature, based on public outcry.
Premiere leapfrog
It was at the second convocation of parliament that the largest number of prime ministerial resignations and appointments came. In August 1996, Viktor Chernomyrdin, who previously held the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers with similar functions, was abolished.
In April 1998, at the initiative of President Boris Yeltsin, young Sergey Kiriyenko became the head of government. At that time he was only 35 years old.
After the default, Kiriyenko was dismissed, and Yevgeny Primakov was approved by deputies in his place. Six months later he was replaced by Sergey Stepashin, and a few months later, Vladimir Putin.
Impeachment attempt
The most important scandal in the work of the Second Duma was an attempt to dismiss President Yeltsin.
The Left Opposition accused the head of state of the collapse of the USSR, the dispersal of the Supreme Council and the Congress of People’s Deputies in 1993, the outbreak of war in Chechnya, the weakening of the security and defense of the state, and the genocide of the Russian and other peoples living in the Russian Federation.
For the resignation of the deputies had to collect 300 votes. For each item voted separately, however, the Communists were defeated. Most of the deputies supported the accusation of war in Chechnya. But even on this item, only 283 votes were won.
Speaker
The Communist Gennady Seleznev was elected Chairman of the State Duma. He was born in the Sverdlovsk region in 1947. He was a deputy of the first convocation.
He worked as the editor-in-chief of the newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda, Pravda, Uchitelskaya Gazeta. In 2002, he founded the Left Revival Party of Russia, which participated in the 2003 elections, gaining 1.88%.
