Governor's elections. Special Project PublicPost

After a long break in Russia, the elections of governors will take place. What happens in each region and what is the main intrigue - read in the new PublicPost special project.

For the first time in Russia, the heads of regions were chosen in 1991. Then only Moscow and St. Petersburg participated in the vote as a city of federal significance. Until 1996, the elections were held episodically in some regions - the president’s position was introduced not in all republics, and the heads of regional administrations were appointed by the president. On a regular basis in all subjects of Russia, elections began to be held since 1996.

In September 2004, after a terrorist attack in Beslan, Vladimir Putin decided to cancel the governor's elections in order to strengthen the power vertical. Instead of voting, he proposed to appoint a candidacy of the head of the region, which is approved by the local parliament. The corresponding law was adopted after a couple of months. The latest elections were held in 2005, after which the president personally appointed governors.

The elections returned in 2012. After thousands of rallies in December 2011, during the Direct Line, Putin said that it was necessary to return to elective practice. He recalled that he personally came up with the regional heads, but now it is necessary to take the next step in the development of the political system. After a couple of weeks, President Dmitry Medvedev introduced the corresponding bill to the State Duma.

The main feature of the law on the return of the governor's elections is the mechanism of the "municipal filter". Medvedev explained his necessity as follows: "There is a danger that people completely unprepared, just rogue or village fools and city crazy people will come to the regions." And the State Duma deputies, who approved the bill, added that such a mechanism brings the future head of the region to the problems that ordinary people exist in the field.

In order to register with a candidate for governors, applicants must enlist the support of 5 to 10% of deputies and heads of municipalities of at least three quarters of municipal regions and urban districts. The municipal deputy can vote only for one candidate. The regional authorities themselves establish the percentage of support from municipal deputies. So, in the Ryazan and Bryansk regions, the municipal barrier is 7%, in the Belgorod - 5%, in the Amur and Novgorod - 10%.

The work of the "municipal filter" led to the fact that in all five regions where the elections will be held on October 14, not all candidates were able to break through it. Opposition candidates complained that either the overwhelming number of municipalities in the region signed up for the current governor, or local authorities refused to inform the addresses of deputies. The filter was eliminated from participation in the elections of strong rivals of existing governors. In the Bryansk region, the candidate of local "Social Revolutionaries" Vyacheslav Rudnikov was refused. The same situation has developed in the Novgorod region with a candidate from the Communist Party. In the Belgorod region, the Communist Party and other opposition parties announced a boycott to the elections, because due to the municipal filter, only the current governor and candidate-spoolers were able to become a candidate.

Elections in the Novgorod , Amur and Belgorod regions became actually a referendum on the issue of trust in the current governor. The candidates from the authorities either did not initially have strong rivals, or they eliminated the "municipal filter". The main intrigue in these regions is how much the effect of protest voting will work, as a result of which candidates from United Russia can get less votes than sociological research show, and initially weak candidates and technical ones are more.

Against this background, the Ryazan region is distinguished, where the rival of the current governor is a well -known communist. He can get serious support for voters, but the chances of the governor are still higher. Experts do not exclude that elections in the region can take two rounds.

Almost until the last day, the main intrigue in the Bryansk region was whether the governor’s elections would take place or not. After the local court removed the current governor, candidate of United Russia, Nikolai Denin, candidates of the LDPR and Yabloko refused to participate in the elections. Their demarche led to the fact that the elections were actually disrupted, since the representative of the Communist Party remained the only candidate. On October 11, the Supreme Court decided the fate of the candidate from United Russia and the fate of elections in the region. The Armed Forces decided to cancel the previous decision and restore the governor. If the court confirmed the withdrawal from Denin’s elections, then the vote would be postponed to March 2013. Now, analysts do not exclude that the elections in the region can take two rounds due to the low popularity of the current governor.

Alexey Titkov, expert of the Institute of Regional Policy:

"Elections in the Bryansk and Ryazan regions showed one essential side of the regional elections - they often find out candidates under the party flags whose ideas are that it is good and what is bad from party attitudes at the all -Russian level. In the case of Bryansk, this is, first of all, the young Petersburg businessman who has already entered the State Duma. “Red region” is more often than normal for the regional elections that a truly strong candidate can be put forward from the party not very noticeable at the all-Russian level-as it was with a nominant from the “patriots of Russia” in the Ryazan region. The candidate of Yabloko in the Bryansk region. That is, in this sense, we can say that the elections are in some truncated form, but are returned more or less similar to what they were, but with some differences. "

Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation:

“Somewhere this is an election, and somewhere it’s just a vote. Of course, it’s just a vote in the Belgorod, Amur regions and, probably, in the Novgorod region. It may potentially be an election, although, probably, it will not be completely in the Ryazan region. It is a real intrigue, if polling stations are opened in the Bryansk region on October 14-this is a real struggle, competition.“ Municipal filters ”. The participation of the current governors in the election.