Emails, Lon Burnam, Aug. 27, 2014

10:07 a.m.

http://www.russiavotes.org/duma/duma_today.php                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    votes                                                                     %                                                            seats

(a): As percentage of total votes cast.

United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya ). Party list headed by President Putin during the 2007 election campaign, and endorsed by him in 2003. The party was created in December 2001 by the merger of Unity (Edinstvo), founded by government leaders in October 1999, with Fatherland-All Russia (Otechestvo-Vsya Rossiya, OVR), a rival in the 1999 elections. United Russia is formally led by Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov. Sergei Shoigu, minister for emergency situations and civil defence, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and Tatarstan president Mintimer Shaimiev, former OVR leaders, are co-chairs.

Communist Party, KPRF (Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii). Founded 1993. Leader: Gennady Zyuganov. Successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Won the most seats in the 1995 and 1999 Duma elections. .

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, LDPR (Liberalno-Demokraticheskaya Partiya Rossiskoi Federatsii). Founded 1990. Led by maverick nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Fair Russia. (Spravedivya Rossiya). Formed 2006 by the merger of Motherland People's Patriotic Union (Rodina Narodno-patriotichesky soyuz) with the Party of Pensioners and the Party of Life. Fair Russia is led by the Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov. Motherland had its origins in late August 2003 when more than 30 organizations came together under the leadership of academician Sergei Glazyev and journalist Dmitry Rogozin. Glazyev and Rogozin quarrelled over whether to contest the 2004 presidential election. Subsequently the Duma fraction split into two groups, the People's Patriotic Union giving rise to Fair Russia, and the People's Will faction, which did not contest the 2007 election.

Two liberal parties which formed separate blocs in previous Duma elections failed to clear the 7.0% barrier in 2007, just as they failed to clear to 5.0% barrier in 2003. They remain extra-parliamentary parties:

• Union of Right Forces, SPS (Soyuz Pravykh Sil). Founded in 1999. A pro-market party led by Nikita Belykh alongside Boris Nemtsov, former First Deputy Prime Minister in the Chernomyrdin cabinet. All three SPS deputies elected in single-member districts in 2003 had joined United Russia by the opening of the Duma.
• Yabloko.Founded 1993. Leader: Grigory Yavlinsky. Pro-market party which criticized the economic reforms of the 1990s. By the opening of the Duma in December 2003, one Yabloko deputy elected in a single-member district had joined United Russia and the remaining three were independents.

Texas legislature  55 dems – 36%

                                  95 % rep – 64%

12:15 p.m.

...my statement and intent of my comment stands. There is more actual party diversity in Russia than there is in Texas. As a practitioner I learned a long time ago not to debate with academics. That is particularly true when person A is talking about quantity and person B is talking about quality.

I am sure if I had time to look into the matter it would be  a difficult call on the question of diversity in the quality of the members of the respective legislative bodies as opposed to the obvious diversity in the numbers of people representing what party.

Really, I don't represent the "Quaker" party, but clearly I brought a different perspective within my own party.

That is diversity within the "Democratic" party, which not so long ago was the only party in Texas.