Translated material
Country Zero
Russian parties do not pay attention to regional politics
The main Russian policy, apparently, will be concentrated in Moscow for a long time. Parties, planning to play and win in federal elections, least of all think about regional aspects during the struggle, focusing on larger issues. At the same time, the majority of voters would still like to hear at least the names of their settlements in regional party programs.There is very little time left before the official start of the election campaign for the State Duma elections, and most political parties have already compiled “draft” versions of their electoral lists. Who will be included in the final list will be determined by party congresses. Again at the federal level. Nevertheless, it is necessary for party leaders to at least show up in the regions. Therefore, the leaders of major parties have already begun to travel to the regions and campaign for their parties. Boris Gryzlov, for example, inspects roads built with the approval and with the moral (or lobbying, with the banal knocking out of money) participation of United Russia. Sergei Mironov is simply trying to popularize his still little-known party, A Just Russia. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky traditionally shows himself to the people. At the same time, when they come to the regions, they often have little idea of what kind of problems the local residents expect them to solve.
The United Russia party believes that the primaries have revealed prominent personalities in the regions, and if one of them gets into the State Duma, then they will then implement the “Putin Plan” locally in accordance with their connections. Apart from the promised construction of roads and the stated desire of party leader Boris Gryzlov to create a federal target program for the development of the North, there are no specific regional aspects in the policy of the party in power.
The leader of the “Fair Russia”, unknown in the regions, Sergei Mironov, after visiting 20 regions over the summer, apparently compiled a large list of issues requiring study. Speaking the other day before local legislative assemblies in Transbaikalia, the head of the Chamber of Regions often did not find answers to questions on specific local problems and preferred to talk about abstract topics. For example, he proposed allowing governors to coordinate all federal departments in their region, except for law enforcement and control. Or cancel the income tax for residents of Transbaikalia and the Far East.
Everywhere in Russia, party leaders say that it is necessary to clearly formulate a program for the development of the region; by the way, every new appointed governor says the same thing. It turns out, on the one hand, this is an admission that until now there has been no regional development strategy, and on the other hand, it is an admission of one’s own incompetence and unwillingness to propose this program.
As a result, the same Mr. Mironov says the same “federal-wide” phrases to each successive regional parliament or plant, and the head of the central executive committee of United Russia, Andrei Vorobyov, when asked about the regional specifics of the party’s program, describes the “Putin Plan” that is universal for United Russia. . That is, at best, it reproduces the provisions of the last message of the Russian President to the Federal Assembly.
“Our party leaders pay too much attention to federal problems in their speeches and in the regions. There is little attention to answers to the questions that residents of the regions are waiting for, agreed Rostislav Turovsky, head of the regional studies department of the Center for Political Technologies, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent. -- Preparing a trip to the regions includes studying local issues. If common topics are supplemented with an indication of those specific objects that exist in a given region, then this is already a speech on a regional topic.”
Before the federal elections, party members are not trying to develop some kind of strategy for working with the regions, but prefer to promise solutions to general federal problems. Since the set of such problems is small and easily calculated by sociological research, the promises of party leaders on regional trips are monotonous. At the same time, rare examples of taking into account local specifics gave parties an obvious percentage advantage in regional elections.
The problems of reforming housing and communal services, rising prices, living standards, pensions and salaries - the main parties unanimously promise to solve all these issues to voters. Moreover, the success of fulfilling promises is often guaranteed by words of support for the party from President Vladimir Putin. Exploiting, in the most general sense, social themes that are understandable to all regions and categories of citizens, during campaigning parties devote a lot of time to issues of an ideological nature - explaining the program and ideology of the party. That is, they speak a language that is incomprehensible and unnecessary to the common voter, as if they are entering into a debate with a representative of some competing party, and are not trying to show people an interest in solving their particular problems.
“People like the regional component,” says Mr. Turovsky. - But, for example, the LDPR and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation do not carry out any regional adaptation of the federal program. These are more ideological and leadership parties.” At the same time, the parties in power, according to the analyst, have much more information about regional difficulties and features, and resources to solve them. But still, the main parties of the country have not yet demonstrated a deep knowledge of regional problems, apparently not feeling a great need for it.