BETWEEN DEMOCRATISM AND ESTATE SYSTEM: “THE LAW ON ELECTIONS TO THE KUBAN LEGISLATIVE RADA (1919–1920)”

The article is dedicated to the law on elections to the Kuban Legislative Rada — the parliament of the Kuban Region. According to the “Basic Laws of the Kuban Region” adopted in 1918, there were supposed to be two representative bodies in the region — the Regional Rada, which elected the Ataman, dealt with the revision of the constitution and emergency issues, and the Legislative Rada, whose activities were related to current legislative work. At the end of 1918, the Legislative Rada was elected by the Regional Rada, but in the future it was supposed to be elected by universal suffrage. By the fall of 1919, a law on elections to the Legislative Rada had been prepared, which envisaged an extremely complex and confusing electoral system. So, in several single-member and two-member districts, FPTP system and plurality block voting were supposed to be applied, and in 8 multi-member districts and in a separate national curia of the Caucasian highlanders — panachage, which provided for a proportional system, but at the same time allowed including to the ballot paper candidates from different lists and even any person who had the right to be elected. When tallying the votes, a redistribution of votes between individual candidates in different districts was envisaged. Contemporaries believed that the developed law was the most democratic in the world, incorporating the advantages of both proportional and majoritarian systems. However, the press, while noting the many advantages of the law, also pointed out that because of the introduced residency requirement, “nonresidents” were put in an unequal position compared to Cossacks, Caucasian highlanders and “indigenous” peasants. With some amendments, the law was adopted in January 1920, but by this time it could no longer have practical significance due to the impending defeat of the Whites in the Civil War.