On Sunday, September 10, elections at various levels were held in 82 regions of Russia. Government candidates won the gubernatorial elections in 16 regions, and in Moscow representatives of the opposition demonstrated unexpected results.
Photo: Vladimir Astapkovich, RIA Novosti
Elections in Moscow
The head of the headquarters of Dmitry Gudkov's United Democrats, Maxim Kats, in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station, called the results of the elections to municipal assemblies in Moscow an “incredible success” for the opposition.
Katz said that Yabloko has actually become the second political force in Moscow. The Yabloko website reports that 180 candidates from the party will become deputies of municipal assemblies in 51 districts of Moscow. According to Katz, about 250 party candidates entered municipal councils.
Gudkov’s headquarters also said that independent candidates for deputies of municipal assemblies in Moscow received a majority in 14 districts. We are talking about Gagarinsky (President Vladimir Putin voted here), Academichesky, Tverskoy, Lomonosovsky, Ostankino, Presnensky, Timiryazevsky, Levoberezhny, Krasnoselsky districts, as well as in Khamovniki, Zyuzino, Izmailovo, Konkovo and in the Airport municipal council.
Opposition candidates Ilya Yashin and Ilya Azar also spoke about the victory of their teams. One of the winners in the Basmanny district was opposition candidate Lyusya Stein.
The Moscow Election Commission estimates the turnout for elections in the capital to be 14-15%. Its chairman, Viktor Gorbunov, called United Russia and Yabloko the main winners of the elections and noted that the final results will be announced by noon on Monday, September 11.
On September 10, 1,502 local deputies in 124 districts, as well as deputies of the Troitsk city district, were elected in Moscow.
Gubernatorial elections
There was no sensation in the gubernatorial elections - the victories were won by the acting heads of regions appointed by the president and candidates from " United Russia».
In Mari El, according to preliminary data, the acting governor Alexander Evstifeev won, gaining about 88% of the votes. His opponents received about 5 and 3.5%. In Karelia, United Russia representative Artur Parfenchikov became the leader. According to official data as of 06.13 (Moscow time), 61.34% of voters voted for him, and about 18% voted for his rival Irina Petlyaeva from the Socialist Revolutionaries.
In Udmurtia, the leader is the co-chairman of the central headquarters of the ONF, Alexander Brechalov, who received more than 75% of the votes. His closest rival, Vladimir Bodrov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, received 8.73%. IN Perm region Maxim Reshetnikov, as of 6.00 Moscow time, received 82.4% of the votes, and his rival from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Irina Filatova, received about 8% of the votes. In the Kaliningrad region, Anton Alikhanov won, receiving 81%. His closest competitor, representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Igor Revin, scored 8.89%.
In the Kirov region, Igor Vasiliev wins by a wide margin. He received more than 64% of the votes, while his competitor from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergei Mamaev received 19.18%.
Andrei Nikitin won in the Novgorod region with 67.99%. In second place was the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Olga Efimova (16.17%).
In the Ryazan region, Acting Governor Nikolai Lyubimov won with 80.16% of the votes. Second place went to LDPR candidate Alexander Sherin with 8.44%.
The acting head of the Yaroslavl region, former security guard of President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Mironov, received about 79% of the votes. The second was Mikhail Paramonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) with 8.61%.
In Sevastopol, Dmitry Ovsyannikov is in the lead with 71.12% of the votes. Roman Kiyashko from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation scored 17.06%.
In Mordovia, Vladimir Volkov won with 89.19%. Businessman Dmitry Kuzyakin came second with 4.18% of the votes.
In the Belgorod and Saratov regions, Evgeny Savchenko and Valery Radaev received 69.29% and 74.62%.
Savchenko's competitor Stanislav Panov (KPRF) scored 15.95%, and Radaev's rival Olga Alimova (also from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation) - about 16%.
In the Sverdlovsk region
Video site
On April 23, at the Arbat cultural and entertainment center, the Congress of Candidates for Municipal Deputies of Moscow was held. The Congress was held by Dmitry Gudkov’s team, which has experience in the 2016 State Duma election campaign. At the congress, a draft of the next municipal elections in Moscow was presented, the main task of which is to at least overcome the municipal filter in order to nominate a democratic candidate for mayor of Moscow in 2018. The strategy for the municipal campaign developed by Gudkov’s team was presented here.
“The main thing is that it’s not too late to fix everything, because otherwise the next station will not be Moscow 2017, but Moscow 2042, exactly according to Voinovich, such a dystopia against the backdrop of burning property papers. Of course, municipal deputies cannot take everything and change it, but we must start today: first, victory in municipal elections, the next step is the election of the mayor, then elections to the Moscow City Duma. And so gradually, step by step, in Moscow we will return power to our own hands, take it away from the members of the Ozero cooperative and lobbyists in the mayor’s office.” – said Dmitry Gudkov in his welcoming speech.
More than 700 people were registered at the event - representatives of well-known IT structures, writers, journalists, business representatives and even a Hero of Russia. These are all candidates.
Well-known politicians: Lev Shlosberg, Stanislav Belkovsky, Vladimir Ryzhkov, Alexander Solovyov (“Open Russia”), representatives of Yabloko, Parnas, OR, Solidarity and other organizations took part in the congress.
To be nominated for mayor, Gudkov must overcome the municipal filter - collect 110 signatures of metropolitan deputies from different districts. Despite the high result, Gudkov failed to get his nominees into 110 districts. This means that he will have to enlist the help of pro-government municipal deputies, just like Alexei Navalny did in the mayoral elections in 2013.
Gudkov told RBC that for this purpose he was ready to appeal to local deputies from United Russia. “Not all United Russia members are supporters of Sergei Sobyanin, which means we can come to an agreement with them,” he explained.
Bargaining for a filter
Everyone was satisfied with the results of these elections, Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, told RBC. The mayor's office - because the voting day passed practically without scandals, the opposition - because it received more mandates than it expected. “United Russia” received 1,154 mandates instead of the 900 parliamentary seats that the party representatives had in the current convocation. United Russia is very pleased with this result, said Oleg Smolkin, head of the executive committee of the Moscow branch of the party, in a conversation with RBC.
However, in general, the number of municipal deputies from opposition parties has decreased: if in the current convocation the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, LDPR, A Just Russia and Yabloko have 390 Moscow deputies, then in the new convocation there will be only 233.
Because of this, not only Yabloko, but no other party except United Russia will be able to overcome the municipal filter in the upcoming 2018 mayoral elections without the help of other parties, said the head of the Moscow City Election Commission. However, before the mayoral elections, the municipal filter may be abolished, political scientists Mikhail Vinogradov and Evgeny Minchenko suggested in a conversation with RBC. The chairman of the Central Election Commission also advocated the abolition or softening of the filter. If the filter still remains, with a high probability Gudkov will still not be allowed to see them, because the Kremlin is not interested in an oppositionist becoming mayor of Moscow, political scientist Abbas Gallyamov told RBC.
United opposition
In February, Gudkov's chief of staff, Maxim Kats, announced that the politician intended to become a single Democratic candidate in the mayoral elections. This is quite feasible, Minchenko said in a commentary to RBC, because “for liberal opposition Gudkov is the only candidate" in the capital, and other options "are not yet visible." On the other hand, political scientist Konstantin Kalachev reminded RBC, we should not forget that the unofficial leader of the opposition until recently was Navalny, who “did not say his word and wants to be the sole leader.”
Navalny himself practically did not take part in the municipal campaign and did not encourage his supporters to vote for Gudkov’s list, limiting himself to supporting the team of one of the leaders of Solidarity, Ilya Yashin, who won in the Krasnoselsky district. Gudkov’s associates are dissatisfied with Navalny’s silence and believe that by ignoring the elections, the oppositionist “brought United Russia members into deputies.” “One link to our website from him would bring a significant number of deputies in different areas, for example, in Yasenevo, Kuntsevo, Koptevo,” Katz told RBC. “I can’t estimate now exactly how many deputies from United Russia Navalny elected, but this is a significant number of districts where he gave them a majority with his tactics of ignoring.”
Katz’s accusations are unfounded, Leonid Volkov, head of Navalny’s campaign headquarters, told RBC. “Katz is lying that one tweet would be enough, because he knows perfectly well how an election campaign works. Voting is not a click, which means that a post will not help significantly change the situation,” he said. In addition, both Navalny and his team talked about the elections in all their broadcasts and wrote about them on social networks, Volkov said. He recalled that Navalny is currently running his own presidential campaign. “That’s why we have to prioritize,” the campaign manager added.
The success of Gudkov’s nominees in the municipal elections could be the beginning of an unspoken confrontation between him and Navalny, Kalachev believes. According to Gallyamov, Navalny is a leader of the “leader” type, so his confrontation with Gudkov, who can now also lay claim to the title of leader of the Russian opposition, cannot be ruled out.
The authorities made a mistake
Gudkov's team promoted to municipal deputies a large number of supporters, despite the “drying” turnout. RBC oppositionists say that the capital authorities deliberately do not inform Muscovites about the elections in order to ensure a high percentage of support for candidates from United Russia. Failure information campaign in Moscow and the Chairman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova.
The bet on reducing interest in municipal elections did not work, Kalachev believes: it led to loyal voters staying at home and not going to vote, while protest youth, on the contrary, became more active.
The classic version of the United Russia campaign, aimed at drying up turnout, has changed the distribution of forces in the opposition, Minchenko agrees. In his opinion, at the last elections an ideologically charged opposition arose with a small but active electoral core.
As RBC previously reported, the number of young candidates among nominees in the current municipal elections has increased by 22% compared to the 2012 campaign. Election participants told RBC that the influx of young people was due to active young Muscovites. Due to the influx of opposition youth into local councils, the city hall will have to change the mechanisms for working with municipalities, Gallyamov predicted. “If earlier the latter simply took the lead and skipped off to carry out the instructions received from Tverskaya, no matter how smart and legal they were, now the relationship will become very formal and cautious,” he noted. According to the political scientist, we're talking about primarily about high-profile projects, for example, such as renovation and “My Street”.
Young opposition deputies will not be able to change anything in the work of municipalities, Kalachev disagrees with him. “All the new nominees can do is keep a list of the city hall’s sins on the eve of the mayoral elections,” he told RBC.
Municipal deputies do not have many real powers. In fact, they can only resolve issues related to the construction of facilities with an area of no more than 1.5 thousand square meters. m, approve municipal budgets, hear reports from the head of the district government and decide to hold a local referendum. But in reality, this is also a lot, especially if there are many representatives of the opposition among the members of the deputy council, Pavel Yarilin, a candidate from Yabloko who won the elections in the Airport district, told RBC. Municipal deputies can express no confidence in the head of the council. Deputies determine the list of courtyard areas for landscaping work, the list of houses for major repairs, resolve issues of installing barriers, etc.
“Opposition councils can seriously oppose the district authorities, the main thing is to be able to come to an agreement [among themselves],” Yarilin concluded.
Elections to municipal councils in Moscow, which will be held in September, have already mobilized thousands of people ready to begin their journey into politics. About one and a half thousand candidates were nominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, 931 candidates were nominated by Yabloko, hundreds of people are running for elections as self-nominated candidates. Competition in the 2018 mayoral elections depends on what the new composition of Moscow municipalities will be like: the required number of supporters in the districts will allow candidates to overcome the municipal filter. “Novaya” spoke with Dmitry Gudkov, who is going to the mayoral elections and, together with Maxim Katz, organized a headquarters for training candidates for municipal deputies. More than a thousand people came to the project; now 830 candidates have already been registered with election commissions.
- TOWhat kind of people come to you to become municipal deputies?
— 92% — people with higher education, 20% even have two. There are a lot of entrepreneurs or those holding high management positions in companies. This is not a story about shops or improvement in the area: we are creating a political force that will change the situation in the country. Next year we will nominate a candidate for mayor, then for deputy of the Moscow City Duma. These people are ready to move with us and change the situation. There are many people of creative professions, there is an employee of Artemy Lebedev’s studio, a Yandex programmer, many designers, there are students, but mostly accomplished and successful people. Everyone is ready to spend about 30-40 thousand rubles on the campaign.
— How many people are nominated from you in the end?
— We expect that 970-980 people will be registered. We are going almost without losses, there were only two refusals: candidates who came on their own, and not from the headquarters, were refused, and one brought the wrong signature sheet, and the other did not indicate a criminal record. Or rather, he remembered this at the last moment, when the signatures had already been collected, and in a document in which it was no longer possible to type this information, he wrote it in by hand. There are approximately 5 districts where there are more candidates than mandates - we transferred them to other districts. We have a “diplomatic department” that resolves conflict situations.
— As far as I know, Nikolai Kavkazsky (a person involved in the Bolotnaya case, a member of the political council of Yabloko) did not receive your support, although it was initially assumed that he would be on the team.
— Kavkazsky has a conflict with Maxim Katz because he voted to expel Katz from the party ( during the conflict between Maxim Katz and the Moscow branch of Yabloko, when Katz made an unsuccessful attempt to become the leader of the branch. — Ed.). Nikolai Kavkazsky is on the Yabloko team, and I have nothing against him, but since Katz and I are doing the project on a partnership basis, if one of us is against the candidate, then the candidate cannot participate.
— “Open Russia” provides you with financial assistance?
— Part of the expenses that the headquarters is now incurring is supported by Open Russia, and we told all our partners about this. For example, we have a PR specialist Vitaly Shklyarov ( a political strategist who worked on the campaigns of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, worked with Gudkov’s campaign in 2016. — Ed.), he lives in Rio de Janeiro - we simply cannot pay for his work at the expense of the headquarters, Open Russia does this. For future campaigns, we do not fund candidates from illegal sources. Plus, giving money to candidates directly is harmful. We want them to learn how to fundraise for themselves. They will definitely find 20-30 thousand for their friends and acquaintances, calling out on social networks, everyone is capable of this. Otherwise, usually the Democrats are deprived of money and airtime, and that’s where their story ends.
Photo: Victoria Odissonova / Novaya
— You have candidates who are nominated from Yabloko and PARNAS, you have self-nominated people — what is the fundamental difference for a candidate: to come from the party or on his own?
— In Moscow, Yabloko is the third most popular party after United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Our candidates are new to politics, and if they are nominated by Yabloko, this gives them some votes at the start, which can be critical for victory. It is important for us that the candidate shares our political views and is an opponent of the current political regime.
— Have you already encountered any violations?
— We have already complained to the CEC that social institutions, from MFCs to hospitals and schools, either organize meetings with candidates from United Russia, or distribute their booklets even before the candidates are registered. One such leaflet was found in Kurkino, it was distributed at the MFC - we even had a statement from a woman who received such propaganda. This happens in all areas. Or social security workers hold meetings with their wards and tell them who they should vote for. Many candidates from United Russia spoke at school events. But then it was impossible to complain about them because they were not registered candidates.
— How do you help candidates?
— We are building an infrastructure, our registration procedure is designed as a quest: the system itself tells you what to do, what documents to collect. The candidate registers on the website and is asked to fill out a form. After completing the questionnaire, the system immediately tells you what documents are needed. The candidate uploads documents - the system offers to come to the election commission to hand them over. At the next step, he is asked to open an election account, then print signature sheets, the headquarters must check them. Then he receives a database of people who are ready to sign. Then the candidate must submit the signatures for verification by the headquarters and take them to the election commission. We will help candidates organize fundraising. The campaign requires from 40 to 100 thousand rubles per candidate.
— How much money have you already collected?
— Initially there was a million rubles for the headquarters - one of the entrepreneurs donated it, we started with this money and held our congress. Now there are almost five million. The average donation is about 1,700 rubles, the largest is 130,000 rubles, the smallest is 1 ruble. Now we collect on average 400 thousand per week.
— What is this money spent on?
— Firstly, renting two large premises: in one the headquarters is located, in the other we conduct training for candidates. The headquarters has three programmers, three lawyers, a department of diplomats, a department for checking candidates, a department for searching for candidates in areas where there are not enough of them, a department for checking signature lists - about 40 people in total. Now there is also a video editor. We spend about half a million a week.
We want to end up with an active supporter in every home through whom we can always bring the necessary information to people. The opposition is losing not only because the elections are unfair, I became convinced of this during my campaign for the Duma. Now, if I had a volunteer in every house back then, I would have won, no matter who my opponent was. In one area I beat Gennady Onishchenko ( Onishchenko was elected to the Duma from the Tushino district, where Gudkov also ran. — Ed.) - there has been a network of volunteers since Katz’s elections to the Moscow City Duma. We must create a system that will allow new people to come into politics, bypassing electoral filters. There will be many new names.
On September 10, municipal elections, that is, district deputies, will take place in Moscow. In total, one and a half thousand mandates are up for grabs. “Thanks” to Sergei Sobyanin, the powers of municipal deputies are small. However, they exist, and if they wish, these people can do a lot in the city. Another thing is that the current deputies - mostly United Russia members, directors, chief doctors and other people dependent on the mayor's office - have no desire. I bet you don’t even know the names of “your chosen ones.” This is what they look like - those who want to lead us again.
Meanwhile, all of them together manage a budget of 10 billion rubles a year. They accept major repairs and landscaping work. It depends on them whether the authorities steal or not. Finally, they act as intermediaries between residents and officials. It was the pro-government municipal deputies who actively campaigned for “renovation” - and because of their status, they achieved success in this.
Finally, municipal deputies have one more function: they cast their votes for mayoral candidates so that they pass the “municipal filter.” Without these votes, no one can be nominated for mayor, so it is vital for the authorities to control district meetings.
So far there is only one district in Moscow, Shchukino, where the opposition has the majority of votes. And the difference in the quality of management there is quite noticeable. In other areas of the city, United Russia rules the roost, which does not even allow residents to attend council meetings (which, of course, is contrary to the law).
I decided to radically change the current situation. Therefore, now in Moscow more than a thousand people are nominated as deputies - independent of the authorities. Many of them are supported by Yabloko, some come from PARNAS, some are self-nominated, but the main thing is that they all share democratic views and do not support Putin, United Russia, or Sobyanin.
We have been looking for, selecting and training these people for the last six months, we have created a propaganda infrastructure for them - and we did all this with money transferred to us by ordinary Muscovites who are tired of feeling like guests in their own city.
The authorities understand that the chances of our candidates being elected are high, so they have chosen a strategy of silence: not to say a word about the upcoming elections, so that as many people as possible will turn out for them. less people- only verified, dependent ones. “Don’t worry,” the collective Sobyanin reassures, “we will choose for you.”
If you do not agree with this proposal, come to the polls. You can only vote in the area where you are registered; early voting begins at the end of August. Do not miss! Come to the polls on September 10th.
