Who is interested in regional elections?

At the independent press center, the Golos association presented media monitoring of election campaigns for the upcoming elections on October 14. On a single voting day, a new governor will be elected in five regions, a legislative assembly will be elected in six, and a series of mayoral elections, city councils and various elections of local district heads will also be held. The elections for the mayor of the Khimki urban district were recognized as the most striking and widely covered in the press. But here, rather, the merit is due to Evgenia Chirikova and the love of liberal journalists for her. However, according to research, the majority of regional media do not talk about local elections. Deputy executive director of Golos Grigory Melkonyants told PublicPost why this is happening.

— According to the research results, it is clear that local elections are covered very poorly. What do you think is the reason for this: was this order given “from above” or are the elections really not of interest?

I don’t think that this is not interesting to the press in those regions where real election campaigns are taking place.

— It turns out that they are deliberately keeping silent?

I think that all these years there has simply been a selection of journalists, the media, when they were discouraged from engaging in real journalism, political journalism. Very often this was inconvenient for the authorities, because the media talked about the crisis, some problems, scandals, and these materials very often were not published. And now this interest has been lost in the nature of regional journalism. Now this is a statement of facts - yes, we have nominated so many candidates, but there is no analysis. The authorities are not interested in attracting attention to these elections at the regional level. Because over all these years, those in power have developed their real electorate, which they bring to vote. And some new interest in these elections - new gubernatorial elections, some more vibrant political parties associated with regional legislative assemblies, or, there, city councils - they can attract an unexpected contingent of voters who, perhaps, have never gone to the polls before elections. They don’t know them, and they have not been studied at all, and there are absolutely no predictions about how they will vote. Therefore, our government does not need any accidents now. But I think that active interest will appear a week before the elections, when some situations that took place during the campaign will be described, some results will be summed up, and then voters will finally be able to understand that elections are taking place in their region. Now everything is being done so that no one really knows about these campaigns.

— For the first time in many years, gubernatorial elections will be held, don’t they arouse great interest?

Unfortunately, gubernatorial elections were no longer entirely competitive from the very beginning - in those regions where they should have taken place with the new law, they did not take place due to the fact that governors were reappointed before the new amendments on direct elections came into force. Therefore, actual elections never took place in these regions.

- So they made a fuss on purpose?

Certainly. In a number of regions where elections were to be held, everyone hoped for them - the authorities simply reappointed these people. Now there are five regions left. The most governed, in their and our opinion, are where the authorities should have the least problems. The only serious fight was in Ryazan, where there was a truly competitive candidate from the Patriots of Russia. But, in my opinion, he was forced or persuaded, I don’t know how, to withdraw his candidacy and, in fact, clear the way for the candidate from the party in power.

— How difficult will a single voting day complicate the work of observers?

In Russia there are now two such days - in March and October. And people somehow managed to mobilize these days. Now we see an abundance of elections that are very significant and interesting, for example, the gubernatorial elections, which are being held for the first time, despite all the nuances. But it's still interesting to see how they go. And now many observers are volunteering to help. In particular, there are a lot of observers in Khimki, but there are only 70 polling stations and closing them (by observers - Ed.) is not a problem. I predict a full house there. In general, there are six cities in the Moscow region, except for Khimki, where there will be vibrant elections.

— There was a lot of talk about the fact that after the December and March elections, observers were very disappointed. Do people now come in droves to sign up as observers?

After the presidential elections, a whole series of local elections took place - the mayor of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kasimov, Yaroslavl, Chagoda, Pereslavl-Zalessky, when these same observers, albeit in smaller numbers (because there was no such need), moved to different regions and observed. And regardless of the results - whether the candidate from the government or the opposition won - it was important for observers that the election organizers followed the procedure. This was the right motive for the observer. It doesn’t matter whether Shakhov wins in Khimki, or Chirikova, or Mitvol. It is important that the elections are held fairly and that they reflect the real vote. I think that this is exactly how the upcoming elections will be held - when volunteers go to the polling stations again, and we (the "Voice" association - Ed.) will help them with training and coordination.