Moscow, 23 November. The election threshold for political parties to get into the Russian parliament is not rigid and in some cases it can be lowered, Central Electoral Commission [CEC] head Vladimir Churov has said.

"If a number of parties cross the 7 per-cent threshold level but win less than 60 per cent [of votes] in total, the next best party will get into the parliament even if it has not obtained 7 per cent [of the overall vote]. In other words, the Russian law is not rigid about the threshold, in some cases it can be lowered," Churov said in an interview with Vremya Novostey newspaper published on Friday [23 November].

The CEC chairman said that the Russian electoral legislation rules out a possibility of forming a single-party parliament. "According to the law, this cannot happen here. If only one party crosses the 7 per-cent threshold, another party will be automatically allowed to take part in the distribution of seats [in the State Duma]," Churov said. He added that Russia's transition to the proportional representation principle of elections, when people vote for a list of candidates nominated by a party, resulted in "a cleaner and better organized election campaign". [Passage omitted]