Half of the places on the primaries lists

Yesterday in the city of Zarechny, Penza region, the first stage of preliminary popular votes took place to elect candidates for deputies of the regional legislative assembly from United Russia and the All-Russian Popular Front. More than half of the candidates were nominated by the ONF, the rest by the party in power. Oppositionists believe that in fact there is no competition between politicians and nominees from the ONF. Experts see a positive effect from the primaries, noting that they will seriously update the composition of the legislative assembly.

As the regional branch of United Russia explained to Kommersant, the events will be held at 18 venues: seven in Penza and 11 in the region. In the first primaries, which took place yesterday at the theater for young spectators in Zarechny, six candidates took part, who were selected from both the party and the ONF: legislative assembly deputy Sergei Baidarov, Young Guard member Sergei Verstakov, local assembly deputy Igor Konnov, as well as representatives from ONF - Victoria Malyutina, Oleg Bakunin and Sergei Savin. Earlier, the head of the regional coordination council of the ONF, Valery Lidin, said that proposals had been received for 148 candidates to participate in the primaries. 69 people are from the party in power and 79 are from organizations that were part of the RKS and joined the ONF.

Elections of deputies to the Legislative Assembly of the Penza Region will be held in October this year. It is noteworthy that the number of deputy mandates has been increased from 23 to 36 (18 will be nominated according to party lists, 18 - in single-mandate constituencies), because The current version of the law on elections in the region does not comply with federal legislation and will be brought into compliance at the elections.

“In seven minutes of speech, candidates will have to talk about themselves, present their own point of view on the future development of the region and Russia and prove that they are worthy of representing the interests of the region’s residents in the legislative assembly,” the press secretary of the regional branch of United Russia explained to Kommersant. Ekaterina Schneider. “There were 200 electors in the first primaries, 100 on each side.” She also clarified that at the end of each event, a secret rating vote is held and a list of candidates for deputies is formed, and authorized representatives of organizations can vote for as many candidates as they see fit.

The primaries procedure is taking place in the Penza region for the second time. Last year it was timed to coincide with the elections of State Duma deputies. In total, Penza United Russia members received three mandates to the federal parliament. According to the results of the primaries, first place was taken by the head of Penza, Ivan Belozertsev, who subsequently refused to represent the region in the State Duma, saying that he would bring “more benefit by remaining to work in the city.” His mandate went to the Deputy General Director of IDGC of Volga, JSC - Director of the Penzaenergo branch, Sergei Yesyakov.

Similar pre-election votes are taking place among the communists. “We don’t call it primaries, we call it primary elections. We are holding reporting and election conferences throughout the region, at which the issue of nominating candidates to the regional legislative assembly is also decided,” Georgy Kamnev, head of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, told Kommersant. “It is clear that the ONF is just a shell for the party in power, into which they are trying to put the same content, we do not have such organizations, we have a negative attitude towards this.” The head of the Communist Party faction in the regional Duma also explained that, in his opinion, primaries are held solely to show the democracy of the electoral process. “But we communicate with management, incl. and United Russia, and they openly laugh there, because in fact there is no competitive basis,” says Mr. Kamnev.

Political scientist Anatoly Bodrov notes that many new faces will appear in the legislative assembly in the upcoming elections. “The composition of the Legislative Assembly is increasing, many young candidates have appeared, I think that even from among the United Russia members it will be renewed by two-thirds,” the expert believes. — There is a fundamental difference between elections to the State Duma and the regional parliament. No matter how you vote, those who are approved in Moscow, in the party headquarters, will still go to the State Duma. That year, for example, it was: Sergei Nazarkin (chairman of the Penza community - Kommersant) participated in the primaries, but did not get into the Duma, and Nikolai Makarov (deputy presidential envoy to the Central Federal District - Kommersant) did not participate, but passed . But the regional one is local, the approach here is different, and the residents choose.” According to Mr. Bodrov, the primaries “will conditionally divide the entire elite into the current and conditionally opposition ones.” “Conditionally, this is because the entire elite that does not make it onto the starting list of the primaries will still get into the legislative assembly either from other parties or as self-nominated candidates. There will be no additional persons,” he concluded.

Andrey Shenin

United Russia lost to the front