The given article presents research of the evolution of the Russian party system. The chosen methodology is based on the heuristic potential of agent-based modelling. The author analyzes various scenarios of parties’ competition (applying Pareto distribution) in connection with recent increase of the number of political parties. In addition, the author predicts the level of ideological diversity of the parties’ platforms (applying the principles of Hotelling distribution) in order to evaluate their potential competitiveness in the struggle for voters.