Carrying the Ballot Box
A little context for Kommersant’s report on Defense Minister Serdyukov informing the once-and-future president that 97 percent of servicemen voted in the December 4 Duma election, and United Russia garnered 80 percent of those votes.
The Defense Minister allegedly told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 80 percent of servicemen and their family members picked United Russia (against 67 percent in 2007). Some remote units reportedly even delivered 99 percent for Putin’s party.
For the official opposition, the LDPR got 8.6, KPRF 6.3, and Just Russia 3.4 percent. Their shares dropped from four years ago.
The TsIK says it doesn’t know how the Defense Ministry comes by such figures since most officers and soldiers vote in normal precincts. And the military department hasn’t commented on any voting report by Serdyukov.
If this is accurate, we can conclude that Serdyukov delivered the military vote.
Nezavisimaya gazeta’s Vladimir Mukhin wrote that United Russia had very similar results in the 2007 Duma election.
In 2003, NG’s Mukhin said the Defense Ministry put the “military electorate” at 5-6 million voters. It’s probably less today.
United Russia reportedly got only 52 percent of the military vote in 2003, and Rodina 12, LDPR 11, and KPRF 6 percent each.
In 1999, UR’s precursor Unity (or Medved) took 48 percent, KPRF 18, the Zhirinovskiy (LDPR) bloc 14, and Fatherland-All Russia 7 percent.
What are we to conclude? The process of nailing down the military vote has gotten smoother over time, coinciding with Putin’s and United Russia’s dominance of Russian politics. It looks like the army has a habit of supporting whoever’s in power. But now it looks just a little out of step with society — voting 80 percent for the party of power versus 49 percent countrywide. But how the army votes and what it thinks may also be two different things.
Russian Defense Policy 