Battle for cities

The election activity of Mikhail Prokhorov does not decrease before the New Year. Prokhorov clearly wants to pull up the voting for his candidacy in March, the townspeople dissatisfied with the authorities. What objectively plays in the hands of power. And his competitor in the elections is not at all Vladimir Putin, but Grigory Yavlinsky.

At the end of the year, it was insignificant, but the election activity was activated-after all, in March the presidential election, some have a difficult struggle for victory in the first round, and still need to collect signatures. The most noticeable (not only in growth) of collecting signatures is, of course, businessman Mikhail Prokhorov.

The day before, he even appointed the chief of his campaign headquarters. The famous television journalist, chief editor and co-host of the NTVshniki socio-political show Anton Krasovsky became the main at the headquarters. Krasovsky already has the experience of election work at the headquarters of the “Union of Right Forces” in the late 1999- early 2000s, and he promised on the air of the Rain TV channel that Prokhorov’s election campaign would pass “brightly”, and its slogan could be the slogan “If not me, then who?”.

The appointment of Krasovsky, of course, is a purely image move, it is unlikely that even a very successful television journalist and even an experience with an experience is able to instantly retrace to political strategist and manager of the federal election campaign.

Other candidates, however, do not put functionaries, but a media person in the posts of the heads of the election headquarters. In Vladimir Putin, the headquarters is headed by film director Stanislav Govorukhin, for Sergey Mironov, actress Rimma Markov.

The heads of the Headquarters, as it were, once again emphasize the features of positioning candidates in the elections. Govorukhin-somewhat outdated, but still some films-complements Putin's brutality, Markova is a direct appeal to the older generation people, especially his female part, Krasovsky-the appeal to a younger and more progressive electorate.

Prokhorov also addresses him in a video published on YouTube and on the entrepreneur blog. The video "I want to work for you" is entitled. Prokhorov there assures that he is not a project, that he would like to be a “candidate from Bolotnaya and Sakharov”, referring, of course, there were many thousands of protest promotions in the capital. The billionaire also says in it about the liberation of those whom the opponents of the authorities call “political prisoners” - Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Sergey Udaltsov, he promises to release.

The latter, by the way, is very, very significant in the sense that Prokhorov can and want to seriously fight in the elections, but he is unlikely to count.

Since the liberation of the same Khodorkovsky is a serious allergen for the current elite. The revision of the Putin rule to such an extent does not seem to be represented in reality, simply the risks of the conflict of elites in this case outweigh the profits. And Mikhail Prokhorov is quite loyal to Putin, presumably, in this case, sly, trying to at least please the protested voter.

In this sense, it can really be considered for the “Putin project”, because the sewage of a protest electorate for voting for an anti-member candidate (and in addition to Prokhorov, all full-time opposition will also participate in the elections-from Grigory Yavlinsky to Vladimir Zhirinovsky) de facto legitimizes the very idea of ​​presidential elections. No wonder Putin called Prokhorov a “strong competitor” - if he really had seen a threat in him, rather, he would not have raised this issue at all. It is difficult to expect that the elections will really turn out competitive, but the authorities will be able to proudly present an extensive list of candidates for every taste.

And to lay out a protest into the components, which will give Vladimir Putin the opportunity to achieve a more or less confident victory.

It seems, however, that neither Prokhorov nor Yavlinsky are capable of "default" to calm the "angry townspeople". They will have to fight for their sympathies. According to a survey of the Levada Center, conducted on Sakharov Avenue on the day of the rally on December 24, Prokhorov and Yavlinsky enjoy the greatest but not overwhelming support among the protesters-for them 18 and 29 percent, expressing their sympathies to one or another presidential candidate (for comparison: only 1 percent of the respondents spoke about the desire to vote for 10, Zyuganov supports 10 percent).

So, judging by the capital's protest moods, the main opponent of Prokhorov in the upcoming elections, if he really wants to associate himself with protesting city layers, will not be Vladimir Putin at all, but Grigory Yavlinsky.

Putin’s electorate seems to have been the traditional - “Uralvagonzavod” and other “people of labor”, who are so zealously protecting the current prime minister, state employees, military, disadvantaged and other “deceived and summarized”. Putin seems to have lost the battle for the “smart and advanced” Putin and does not want to seek glory on this field. And in the electoral sense, it is not so necessary.

In the sense of competition with Yavlinsky for the protest city electorate, Prokhorov will have to lead a “bright campaign”. Both Krasovsky at the head of the headquarters, and the appeal to users of the network (over a hundred thousand people watched him in two days) - this is not all against Putin. Whether the strategy will be successful - who knows. Prokhorov appointed himself a picky voter for himself, he must still be convinced that Mr. “Who, if not Me” does not turn out to be banal “wiring”.