Elections in vitro

In order to talk about elections in all 14 regions, it would be necessary to write a book. It is easier to simply analyze the situation in one of the most crisis areas - Pskov - and disassemble the situation "on bones" on her example.

Initially, the elections in this region suggested intrigue. For a very long time, the situation in the political sector of the region is unstable. There is already a standard conflict for Russia between the head of the region and the mayor of the provincial city. In this case, the Governor of the Pskov Region Mikhail Kuznetsov represents one side, and the second - the mayor of Pskov, Mikhail Zhoronen. Smoothly this conflict before the election turned into a conflict of the internal party, since both the first side and the second represented one party in their face - "United Russia". The main struggle was just flared around party lists.

From October to the end of January, there was a fierce dispute for who would enter the first five in the list of candidates for elections to the regional meeting from the United Russia party. During this period, five lists were examined, but each of them was unhappy with one side.

Back in October, three options for the list of the first five candidates were prepared, who would have to represent this party in the Pskov region. In all three versions, the list was headed by the governor of the region - Mikhail Kuznetsov. But in December, at the initiative of the leader of United Russia, Boris Gryzlov and the party’s political council, the fourth option was proposed in which Mikhail Kuznetsov was not mentioned at all in the pre -election list of United Russia, and headed the list of the regional political council of the Pskov regional branch of the United Russia party, Alexei Sigutkin. At the same time, this list included the names of the mayors of the two largest cities of the region, with whom the governor did not always develop successfully. Accordingly, a response strike followed, the purpose of which was to level the influence of Mikhail Zhoronen and the mayor of the Great Lucia Lidia Golubeva on the current process.

On January 11, at the next political reserve of the regional branch of the United Russia party, the fifth list of the first five candidates from United Russia was proposed in the elections to the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies. The five included: Alexey Sigutkin, Victor Antonov, Elena Bibikova, Valentin Kalensky and Dmitry Alenichev. This, of course, was a compromise. The list did not include neither the governor of the Pskov region, Mikhail Kuznetsov, nor the mayor of Pskov Mikhail Zhoronen, nor the mayor of the great Luke Lidia Golubeva.

However, this decision on the Old Square, as well as in the Kremlin, was perceived as a manifestation of "local amateur performances." As a result, a different decision followed a little more than a week later, and Lidia Golubeva again entered the list again. With this list "United Russia" and went to the elections in March. But a brilliant move was made: Mikhail Kuznetsov was appointed responsible for the result of the United Russia campaign, and the deputy chairman of the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies, chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy Mikhail Gavunas, who had previously previously claimed to be fifth in the regional list, was appointed responsible.

After determining this situation, it became clear that the main intrigue will develop around United Russia and the result that this party will receive in the elections will largely determine the further vector of the development of the political system of the region.

Of course, all the forces, including the administrative resource, were abandoned to support United Russia in the region. In fact, the elections were predetermined to pass in vitro.

First, an epidemic of all kinds of withdrawal and exceptions followed. So, the party of the right -wing forces did not participate in the election campaign in the Pskov region. The election commission refused the party to register, referring to the insufficient number of regional groups in the election lists of the Pskov regional branch of this structure. According to the law, there should be 22 of them, and the composition of the ATP included only 20 regional groups.

Also, the regional branch of the Yabloko party could not participate in the election marathon. On January 29, the chairman of the regional branch of the party, Lev Shlosberg, sent a letter to the election commission of the Pskov region, which said that "in connection with the facts of administrative pressure on candidates included in the Unified list of the Yabloko electoral association, the unified list of candidates for the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies of the fourth fourth election of the Fourth Elections of the Pskov Region submitted to the election commission of the Pskov Region. convocation ". The chairman of the regional election commission, Mikhail Ivanov, in turn, noted that administrative pressure on the candidates from the Yabloko party is “Tales of the Vienna Forest”.

However, the most interesting began on the election day. In the Pechora district, in which, by the mysterious coincidence of the circumstances, under the Regional Group on the list of "United Russia" stood Mikhail Gavunas, there is also an atilized enterprise of Euroceramics LLC. According to one of the information resources of the Pskov region: “On March 11, in the Pechora district, there is a mass vote on absenteeism issued in violation of the law,” Alexei Malov, a member of the territorial election commission of the Pechora district, told the Pskov Information Agency. The municipality, which issued a certificate, or the subject of the federation. In each such bus there are 40-50 people with the "senior", there is a drunken carrier. The people are voted back to Pskov and returned for a new batch, ”said A. Malov.” As the results of the elections then showed, United Russia in the Pechorsky district gained the maximum percentage of votes in the region - 53%, while the average in the region was 45%. We have just an electoral miracle ...

At first glance, criticism of elections in the Pskov region may seem tough, while it was done primarily in order to be constructive. The fact is that one of the main indicators of development is the economic factor. The engine of the modern economy is competition. To date, the successes in the economy are largely dependent on the flexibility of the economic policy, which is carried out by the authorities. If the authorities are conducting a tyrannical, non -constructive policy, then the economy will suffer from this. The main blow will be precisely a blow to free competition.

You don’t have to go far to find out the factors thanks to which European countries, the United States of America, “Asian Tigers” were able to succeed. In the latter case, the principles of neoliberalism may not have been observed in everything, since the “Asian tigers”, firstly, worked in the conditions of state protectionism and the sufficiently large state intervention in the economy, secondly, they acted in conditions when there was no financial openness, and thirdly, they gave priority to the domestic market. But in the domestic market, these, now the largest world companies have won a tough competition, which allowed them to become the best and in demand not only in their country.

In politics, the situation is the same. You can quote Horace: "If you have nothing to offer better, submit." Unfortunately, in Russian realities it is not the best to submit, but the most “authoritative” - and obviously not from the point of view of the concepts of Milton Friedman and John Meinard Keynes. This inhibits the development of the country.

Of course, it is very easy to get a huge electoral rating of the party due to administrative pressure on competitors or having driven workers from their enterprises into buses and forcing them to vote in the right areas from the stick for whom the boss will say. But it is clear that it will not be understood that it will not bring to anything good, but, on the contrary, will also aggravate both the crisis of state power and the economic sphere. Is it any wonder that the Pskov region considered as an example has the lowest income of the population among all regions of the North-West Federal District, and the number of invalid ballots in the March 11 elections, in which citizens, for example, were completed to the column “against all” or left their wishes to the elected candidates, reached a critical mark of 6.35%.

In order to develop in another, more constructive channel, it is necessary to create two and more equal political institutions, as well as a complete absence of administrative election pressure. The trust of the people must be gained, and their interests should not be represented by those who bought the voices of the marginal layers, but those who proposed the most optimal ways to solve acute socio-economic and political problems.

I would like to finish this article with the words of the assistant President Vladislav Surkov, who, in my opinion, was just the most capacious and accurately described by the new vector, according to which the public administration system should develop: “Any healthy democratic political system is distinguished by a stable list of main players. In the United States, where freedom of choice is unconditionally, there is a certain situation in many countries of Europe. Russia should move in the same direction.