Translated material
Navalny yesterday is Shein today
“Dark forces are viciously oppressing us”: a bad harvest of ham and gorgonzola is expected in the country, the sovereign-emperor is at war in Ukraine, censorship is angry, and the capital’s newspapers and new trends reach the provinces with a great delay. For example, in the Astrakhan region, where gubernatorial elections are to be held on September 14, the political trends of the last Moscow summer are in vogue today, when Alexei Navalny almost persuaded Sergei Sobyanin to the second round. Then, I remember, analysts excitedly talked about how the Presidential Administration was able to kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, with the help of the United Russia party, help Navalny overcome the municipal filter and thereby ensure “real competition” in the elections (although in methods of agitation, the opposition was limited), and therefore give the power of Sergei Sobyanin a slight flair of legitimacy, and on the other hand, knock out the same Sobyanin from the race for the seat of Vladimir Putin’s “heir”, because for Putin’s governors everything that is lower than “presidential” 65 %, is not worthy of respect. Sobyanin then experienced probably the most terrible night of his life, watching during the vote counting how Navalny’s curve grew and grew, and his curve fell and fell, until it finally stopped one step away from the abyss of the second round at around 51. 37%.
This summer in the Astrakhan region they decided to replay the Moscow elections of the 2013 season for the second time. Everything is repeated as pre-written: a moderately popular governor, who, against the backdrop of cooling relations with the Kremlin, wants to give his power more legitimacy and therefore, with the help of United Russia, helps his main competitor pass the municipal filter; a popular oppositionist who has a real chance of moving the game into the second round; three meaningless extras who don’t really conduct a campaign and don’t even raise their voices about the upcoming “sophisticated falsifications” and the evacuation of KOIBs from Astrakhan. True, no one has yet run after Shein with the Bulgarian, but in fact we already have a second round ahead of us without the first, a clarification of the relationship between two major politicians immediately and on the spot.
Now in more detail.
Governor Alexander Zhilkin is undoubtedly a popular figure in the Astrakhan region, even despite a number of glaring problems existing in the region (dilapidated housing, mass “commercial arson”, lack of clean drinking water). Being one of the last popularly elected governors, Zhilkin is now serving his third term. In 2004, after the sudden death just before the elections of the governor of the Astrakhan region Anatoly Guzhvin (1991 - 2004), the first deputy governor Zhilkin won early voting with a result of 65.34%. In 2009, President Medvedev extended Zhilkin's powers for another five-year term. In the region, Zhilkin is considered an experienced and influential politician, and after the arrest of the mayor of Astrakhan, absolute power in the region was actually concentrated in the hands of the governor. According to Zhilkin himself, he is forced to be not only a governor, but also a “senior mayor.”
Zhilkin today is the last of the “Astrakhan three” (Zhilkin, Bozhenov, Stolyarov) who is still afloat. Former mayor of Astrakhan Sergei Bozhenov (2004 - 2011), who was later appointed to the post of governor of the neighboring Volgograd region, after a series of corruption scandals, as well as three major terrorist attacks in December 2013 in the capital of the region, was removed from his post and now, judging by some data , is abroad, as they say, “on the run.” The next mayor of Astrakhan and protégé of Sergei Bozhenov, Mikhail Stolyarov (2012 – 2014), did not have time to escape and is currently under arrest. On November 13 last year, he was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of 10 million rubles. In addition to money, according to investigators, the mayor of Astrakhan extorted a 25 percent share in a future business from one of the entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur turned to the mayor with a request to allocate a plot of land in the city for the construction of an administrative building. The trial of Stolyarov was supposed to take place before the gubernatorial elections on September 14, 2014, but it was constantly delayed due to “medical indications”; the defendant kept getting sick, and he went to the hospital. It is believed that Governor Zhilkin does not benefit from an open trial against Stolyarov, at least until the election date.
It may also be recalled that in March last year, also on charges of taking a bribe, the vice mayor of Astrakhan Andrei Kovalev was arrested, and another vice mayor Oleg Lebedev managed to escape and was put on the federal wanted list due to fraud charges.
Due to regular corruption scandals in the region, the Kremlin is seeking to “reset the loyalty” of citizens of the Astrakhan region. It is precisely this desire that causes the “Moscow scenario” in the upcoming elections. It is even expected that the Chairman of the Central Election Commission, Churov, will personally arrive “to control the integrity of the elections.” At the same time, it is becoming more and more difficult for Governor Zhilkin himself to stay afloat. Despite the fact that Zhilkin regularly “gives signals” (for example, he speaks radically about Ukraine, invites Berkut fighters to Astrakhan), there is an opinion that Zhilkin even went to the gubernatorial elections without the direct permission of the Kremlin. That is, he did not ask for early termination of powers and permission to participate in the next gubernatorial elections, as Sergei Sobyanin did last year and as the other 19 governors did this year.
Initially, Zhilkin did not intend to “play at liberalism,” and, most likely, the elections would have been held with a standard set of extras from the systemic opposition parties. However, after the statement by the secretary of the general council of the United Russia party, Sergei Neverov, that the majority party will help the main competitor of the current governor, Oleg Shein, collect the signatures of municipal deputies and register for the elections, since Alexander Zhilkin “has already collected the required number and we predict his victory in the first round in open competition,” Zhilkin was forced to come to terms with and agree to the “Sobyanin option.”
In addition to the notorious “reset of legitimacy,” the Kremlin also faces a very pressing task. On September 29, immediately after the elections, Astrakhan will become the capital of the Caspian summit, and the authorities do not need the city, as two years ago after the “election of mayor Stolyarov,” to be again shaken by hunger strikes and mass protests led by Sergei Mironov and Alexei Navalny.
Therefore, everything is being done to ensure that the elections “under Shein” go as smoothly as possible and do not entail any consequences. For this, the Kremlin is ready to sacrifice the political reputation of Alexander Zhilkin, again allowing the final result according to the Moscow scheme of 51%–27%. And the wolves are safe, and the sheep are well-fed.
What about Oleg Shein?
Most analysts note that, having received a chance to participate in the gubernatorial elections, Shein is waging a rather sluggish campaign, not aimed at taking power in the region. Two years ago, Oleg Shein tried to protest the results of the elections for the mayor of Astrakhan, in which Stolyarov, accused of corruption, won 60%, and Shein himself won 29.96%. Moreover, the results from polling stations equipped with COIBs and the results from polling stations with manual vote counting differed significantly (!). Shein managed the impossible - for 40 days, while his protest hunger strike lasted, he was able to turn Astrakhan into the political capital of Russia. Alexei Navalny then called on all his supporters to go to Astrakhan and hold protests there. The entire representative staff of A Just Russia - father and son Gudkovs and Ilya Ponomarev - then also came to Astrakhan. After Sergei Mironov’s visit to the city, the Russian Central Election Commission, represented by Vladimir Churov, agreed to negotiations. And although the hunger strike did not lead to anything, federal attention was drawn to Astrakhan problems.
The nomination of Oleg Shein for governor was generally of a protest nature. Shein does not hide the fact that he does not have any special gubernatorial ambitions, and that by nature he is more of a tribune deputy than a “strong business executive.” A State Duma deputy of three convocations, Shein’s ultimate dream was always to be the mayor of the city of Astrakhan. In case of defeat in the gubernatorial elections and after the completion of the Stolyarov case, Shein again intends to run for mayoral elections. And, in fact, participation in the gubernatorial elections was caused by the fact that the Astrakhan City Council rejected Shein’s proposal to hold a referendum in the city on the nature of direct/indirect mayoral elections. After the reform of local self-government initiated by United Russia at the beginning of the year, rumors appeared that Governor Zhilkin was considering canceling the mayoral elections in Astrakhan and replacing the mayor with a city manager. However, after the City Council blocked Sheynov’s referendum on this issue, Zhilkin changed his mind and said that he had nothing against direct elections of the mayor, but if something happened, “residents themselves will be responsible for if they elect an unsuitable mayor.”
There is less than a week left before the vote. Throughout the summer, Oleg Shein’s media rating grew steadily. The number of mentions in the Astrakhan media for Alexander Zhilkin was 455 (May), 584 (June), 647 (July), and for Oleg Shein 116 (May), 279 (June) and 285 (July). Today, according to the latest polls, the rating of the current governor Zhilkin is 61%, Oleg Shein 14%, about 5% are ready to support the LPDR candidate Alexander Starovoytov, the communist Oleg Snegov and the representative of the Automobile Russia party, the “reserve” candidate Zhilkin, have 4% each , follower of the “Putin blows up houses” cult Alexander Tukaev. 14% have not yet made their choice. The likelihood of a second round is not particularly high, but it is quite possible. Most likely, according to the “Moscow scenario”, Zhilkin will win in the first round, slightly jumping over the 50% barrier, while Shein will gain about 25%, which will be an excellent help for him in the early elections for the mayor of Astrakhan.
Another question is whether Zhilkin’s victory will be “crystal clear”? Shein’s headquarters reports that KOIBs are being massively transported from Astrakhan to the countryside, which ensure a more or less objective counting of votes. Let us remind you that out of the million-strong population of the Astrakhan region, 530 thousand live in Astrakhan itself. To win in the capital means to win in general.
Just as in the Altai Mountains, one of the poorest regions of the country, where the opposition candidate is expected to win on September 14, the high level of protest voting in the Astrakhan region is caused by a number of unresolved problems. Although the region is a strong “C” in terms of GRP (55th place according to 2012 data), this subject of the federation has a number of “chronic diseases”. Even if we leave out the total corruption in the highest echelons of power (criminal cases against mayors and vice-mayors), then the existing problems are more than enough. According to candidate Shein, about 40% of the region’s population does not have regular access to clean drinking water, about 300,000 people suffer from obvious and hidden unemployment, about 60 “commercial arson” were recorded in 2013 and 2014 alone, and the problem of dilapidated and emergency housing in the city has still not been resolved, and there are no funds in the regional budget for its solution. The region has a difficult situation with internal migration; about 30,000 left the region last year. The balance of external migration in the Astrakhan region is negative, in other words, even guest workers from the countries of Central Asia and the Transcaucasian republics do not stay here.
And with all this, the main problem of Sunday's elections in Astrakhan is that both the authorities and the opposition are using them in their own interests, but no one is striving to win in the interests of the citizens. Zhilkin needs renewed legitimacy, as well as peace and order after “fair” elections. Shein needs to enlist the support of voters before the future elections of the mayor of Astrakhan; for him, the gubernatorial elections are also just a “maneuver”. So it turns out that before us is a “battle of the titans,” where each of the titans fights with its own shadow and at the same time carefully follows the Kremlin script.