The United Russia party has dominated the Russian Parliament for almost a decade, and officially received 49.4 percent of the votes in the State Duma elections held on December 4. While this implied a loss of the two thirds constitutional majority it held during the previous term, United Russia still won 238 of the 450 seats and will keep an absolute majority in the legislature. However, the Duma elections also marked the start of sizable anti-Kremlin rallies that have been carried out in Russia over weeks following the elections. These protests were triggered by the numerous reports of irregularities and violations surrounding the elections, and although such reports came from all corners of the federation, the most blatant examples of rigged results can be found in the North Caucasian republics.

Thus, five of the seven regions which reported the highest figures for United Russia were the North Caucasian republics. United Russia officially received 99.5 percent of the votes in Chechnya, and 91.4 percent in Dagestan. In Ingushetia the official results stated that 91 percent of the voters cast their ballots for the ruling party and in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria United Russia purportedly received 89.8 percent and 81.9 percent respectively. The same five republics also stand out when looking at voter turnout. According to the Central Election Committee (CEC), 60.2 percent of the eligible voters took part in the elections at the national level. But in the North Caucasus, the figures were significantly higher. The reported turnout reached 90.9 percent of the registered voters in Kabardino-Balkaria and 80.3 percent in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. In Dagestan, 78.6 percent of those eligible voted and in Ingushetia, the corresponding figure was 72.7 percent. In Chechnya, the officials had some problems sorting out the numbers, but in the end they concluded that no less than 99.5 percent of the republic’s registered voters had participated in the election. In comparison to the results from these five republics, the results from neighboring North Ossetia seem less far-fetched. According to the CEC, 71.65 percent of the republic’s eligible voters took part in the elections and 67.9 percent of them voted for United Russia.

Despite all the implausible results, no public display of discontent comparable to that seen in other parts of Russia has followed the elections in the republics discussed above. Very few official complaints of election violations have been filed and, with the exception of a few small-scale demonstrations in Makhachkala, no protest rallies have taken place in these republics. However, in a recently released Kremlin-sanctioned survey, conducted five months ago by the Russian Institute for Social Marketing (INSOR), more than half of the 3,500 respondents claimed that they usually did not participate in elections, and the share that said they supported United Russia ranged from 55 percent in Karachaevo-Cherkessia to 30 percent in Ingushetia.

As Vladimir Putin’s popularity appears to be waning, rigged elections in the North Caucasus might become increasingly important for the Kremlin. Even though they only house little more than 4 percent of Russia’s population, the six North Caucasian republics accounted for more than 8 percent of United Russia’s votes in the December 4 elections and it is doubtful whether United Russia would have managed to win a majority in the Duma without the extreme results provided from the North Caucasus. If turnout numbers and United Russia’s share of the votes in the six troubled North Caucasian republics would have matched the official national average, the party would have ended up with 46,6 percent of the ballots. This would have put them very close to losing their Duma majority even if the results would have stayed the same in every other part of the country. Moreover, if the North Caucasian results would have been in accordance with results presented in the above-mentioned INSOR-survey, United Russia would not have been able to win a majority of the seats.

The electoral fraud in the North Caucasus is largely a consequence of Moscow’s patron-client relations with local leaders. In many ways, the rulers in Moscow treat the North Caucasus as an unruly frontier region and their main objective appears to be to uphold stability in order to not lose control of the territory. Local leaders are appointed and dismissed by the Kremlin and, in connection to Duma elections, the increasingly salient party list system offers the Russian leadership a possibility to wield influence over regional elites through the United Russia party. In exchange for parliamentary representation, power at the local level, and subsidies, the region’s leaders are supposed to uphold security and provide the Kremlin with much needed electoral support. While there is no denying that this system has brought a certain degree of stability to the war-scarred Chechnya, it has also undermined the democratic process and frustrated citizens not only in the North Caucasus but in the entire Russian Federation.