WHILE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE, PENDING THE election results, to extrapolate the likely composition of the Duma from the candidates’ demographic characteristics, an analysis of the candidate lists of the 12 most important parties yields interesting insights into those parties’ recruitment strategies. The most striking features are the high number of regional elites recruited by Our Home Is Russia and the large number of entrepreneurs running in all of the parties. Otherwise, one can expect the composition of the new Duma to be similar to that of the current legislature: middle-aged males drawn from the managerial and political elites of Russia.
