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It is important to know the major political actors in Russian politics. First there is the President. This office is modeled after the United States. The President is a major player just like our President. The second actor is the Prime Minister. The President chooses this office, and he does not have to be a major player in Parliament. The President controls his fate. The third actor is the Government, which includes the Prime Minister and cabinet members. It does not include the President, Parliament or bureaucrats. The fourth is Parliament. This includes the Federal Assembly, which is made up into two chambers. These two parts are the Federation Council and the Duma. The Federation Council has 178 members, consisting of two representatives from the governments of each republic, territory, region and area. The Duma has 450 members. Half are elected from districts; the rest of the seats are distributed proportionally among those parties whose national vote exceeds 5% (White, 36). Another major actor(s) are the oligarchs. They are the top richest people in the country. During privatization they bought up a lot of the land. .
They are very influential. The last of the actors is the media, specifically T.V. There are three major T.V. stations in Russia; they are PRT, DRT and NTV. The oligarch's or the soviets own PRT and DRT. Gusinsky, who's an oligarch, owns NTV. He is usually truthful. Putin has waged a war for control of this station. These are all of the major political actors. They each play their own part in society. During the Presidential election, the President and the T.V. were pretty big players. .
In the 1996 election there were many parties fighting for the office. There were parties with varying ideas. These parties included centrists, reformists, nationalists and communists (White, 41). Within these parties were "sub-parties". The centrists were known as "Our Home is Russia" from 1995-1999.
