United Russia has lost votes and regions

According to preliminary data, United Russia lost about 13 million votes in the 2011 elections compared to the 2007 elections. In a third of the regions the party received less than 40% of the votes. Experts and oppositionists explain this by the activation of the protest electorate. United Russia is unofficially talking about an unsuccessful campaign.

Based on the results of processing the majority of protocols, United Russia will receive approximately 49.5% of the votes in the Duma elections, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation - 19.2%, A Just Russia - 13.2%, LDPR - 11.65%, Yabloko - 3.3%. In 2007, the turnout for the elections was 63.7% (68.7 million voters), and in 2011 it decreased to 60.2% (according to preliminary data, 63.3 million people voted for the parties). "United Russia" lost almost a third of the electorate: in 2007, 44.71 million voters voted for it, and in 2011 - 31.92 million, that is, 12.79 million less (remember that in 2008 in " United Russia" was joined by the Agrarian Party, which received 1.6 million votes in 2007). The outflow of votes, Leonty Byzov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained to Kommersant, is associated with a decrease in the turnout of the “swamp”, which voted for the party in power. “Other people came who intended to vote against United Russia by voting for other parties,” he noted. The last elections differ from 2007 in that then “there was a situation of general prosperity, pre-crisis times, and any protest seemed pointless.”

Four years ago, United Russia showed its lowest result in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, where it received 48.7% of the vote. This time, in a third of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, 40% of voters or less voted for the party in power (see map).

Voronezh. Elections of deputies to the Russian State Duma of the sixth convocation. A girl puts a ballot into a ballot box
Photo: Oleg Kharseev, Kommersant

The figures fell especially noticeably in the north-west and central Russia. In St. Petersburg, about 33.2% (575 thousand) of voters voted for the party, while in 2007 - 50.2% (971 thousand), in the Tver region - 38.4% (234 thousand) instead of 59.7% (401 thousand) four years ago. In the Yaroslavl region, the party received a record low percentage of votes - 29% (171 thousand) instead of 53.1% (352 thousand) in the last elections. The Moscow region “sank”, where the number of votes for United Russia dropped by half. In the Sverdlovsk region, instead of 1.32 million voters, 583 thousand voted for United Russia (32.6% instead of 62%). Indicators fell in Siberia and the Far East. In the Tomsk region, the party was supported by 37.4% of voters (145 thousand) instead of 58.4% (267 thousand) four years ago. At the same time, traditionally high results for United Russia were given by the national republics (for example, 99.48% voted for it in Chechnya), the Kemerovo region (although there the result fell from 76% to 64%), as well as the Tambov and Tula regions, where the result exceeded 60%.

“The specificity of voting lies in the controllability of certain regions,” Georgy Chizhov, vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies, explained to Kommersant. United Russia's "drawdown" happened where the authorities were unable to provide the desired results and where the opposition parties showed themselves more actively. The highest protest potential is in big cities, and it was there, according to Mr. Chizhov, that “there were very large discrepancies between the voting results and the exit poll results.” “Since there is a shortage of supply in the political market, as soon as the parties were able to develop activity, the results of United Russia fell, as in the northwestern regions and the Far East,” the expert believes. “In the 2007 elections, United Russia showed a phenomenal result - it was a peak, after which only downward movement is possible,” said Mr. Chizhov.

Saint Petersburg. A voter during voting for State Duma deputies at a polling station for persons without a fixed place of residence
Photo: Alexander Koryakov, Kommersant

Deputy head of the LDPR headquarters Yaroslav Nilov attributed the decline in the number of United Russia voters to the fact that “they are forced to vote for this party and people are annoyed by this,” while “there are no real improvements.” The result of the party in power turned out to be high where it is “written under dictation,” the politician believes. As Dmitry Novikov, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for ideology, told Kommersant, dissatisfaction with the authorities turned into an increase in voting for the opposition in these elections. He calls the growth of the results of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation stable, especially in large cities (Irkutsk, Bratsk, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, etc.). A surge in activity occurred “in a number of cases in the direction of the LDPR, in a number of cases in the direction of A Just Russia.” For example, the LDPR is voted more strongly in the Far East, “because the social base of the LDPR is in depressed regions, where the degree of lumpenization is greater,” the communist notes. “Those who are no longer ready to vote for the party in power, but disdain Zhirinovsky and were infected with anti-communism in the 90s, vote for the Right Russia party,” explains the communist.

The head of the central executive committee of United Russia, Andrei Vorobyov, told Kommersant: “In the near future we will conduct an analysis, work on mistakes and, of course, draw conclusions.” Kommersant's interlocutors in United Russia note that "the regions conducted the campaign extremely poorly." In particular, they cite St. Petersburg as an example. And also Moscow, where, in their opinion, “there was no campaign at all,” but “they left due to significant stuffing.” When asked by Kommersant whether any of the party leaders would leave following the results of the Duma elections, a source in the leadership of United Russia replied: “We have not yet heard that anyone is leaving. Everyone is probably happy with their work.”

Maxim Ivanov

Party without 13 million