Translated material
Last rehearsal
Among the 16 regions whose residents will have to elect heads in September, there are several that have always been problematic for United Russia and its candidates.
So, in the Yaroslavl region in the elections to the State Duma in 2011, United Russia showed the worst result in the country, and in 2012, the election of the mayor of Yaroslavl was won by oppositionist Yevgeny Urlashov. In Karelia, the heads of the republic appointed by the president were constantly at war with the opposition and local elites; the climax was the struggle between the odious governor (now former) Alexander Khudilainen and the mayor of Petrozavodsk, a member of Yabloko Galina Shirshina, who was eventually fired ahead of schedule. In the Perm Territory, the regional elites were dissatisfied with the Varangian governor Viktor Basargin and eventually forced him to resign ahead of schedule. In Mari El, the eccentric but unpopular Leonid Markelov won the first round in 2015 by a minimal margin of 0.78%; On April 13, 2017, a week after his resignation, he was detained and arrested for taking a bribe.
However, the current elections in the past problematic points can be relatively calm. The reasons for this are different.
“In the Yaroslavl region, there may be one problem for the Kremlin and its candidate - low turnout. There are no politicians capable of mobilizing the protest electorate, which is sitting on sofas and demobilized. But there are no supporters of the authorities either.”
Latent protest
Yaroslavl region since the summer of last year in the rank of "acting" headed by Putin's former bodyguard Dmitry Mironov. The president came to support his protege last week. Local elites are not very happy with the new leader. “The entire government of the region is made up of Varangians, the locals were fired, even people from the Moscow region are being dragged to the posts of heads of small municipalities,” an influential local politician complains in a conversation with NT on condition of anonymity. So, according to him, Mironov listens to all the advice of the prime minister of the regional government Dmitry Stepanenko - he also comes from the FSO, previously worked in the Moscow region. At the same time, the interlocutor believes, strong competition is not expected for the not-so-popular interim governor in the elections: no one wants to fight the security forces.
“In the Yaroslavl region, the Kremlin and its candidate may have one problem - low turnout,” Nikolai Mironov, head of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms, predicts the course of the upcoming elections. “There are no politicians capable of mobilizing the protest electorate that is sitting on the sofas. But there are no supporters of the authorities either.”
Strong politicians capable of fighting for victory, according to Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, exist in Mari El - this is a historical fact. But although Alexander Evstifeev, the former chairman of the Arbitration Court of Appeal of the Moscow Region, appointed to lead the republic, does not have much political experience, nothing is heard of those who want to give him a serious fight.
For the Permian elites who survived from the region of the stranger Basargin, the acting governor Maxim Reshetnikov, who worked in the government of the Russian Federation and the Moscow mayor's office, is still more of his own.
In the Kaliningrad region, notorious in 2009-2010 for thousands of protests that cost Georgy Boos his post, Vladimir Putin replaced the unpopular governor Nikolai Tsukanov with a young Moscow official, Anton Alikhanov (however, in the interval between Tsukanov and Alikhanov, another Putin guard, Yevgeny Zinichev, ruled for a couple of months ). Despite a number of scandals, the population still likes Alikhanov. “The local elites were thinking of putting up a strong competitor for him. There are such people in the region, but so far they are refusing to fight, ”a source close to the leadership of the State Duma told NT.
This interlocutor and one of the political strategists close to the Kremlin do not rule out that the number of electoral regions problematic for the Kremlin may increase: there is talk of the resignation of the Samara governor Nikolai Merkushkin and the head of Primorye Vladimir Miklushevsky.
Mayor vs Governor
In the Sverdlovsk region, the head of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, challenged the current governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev ( for more details, see NT No. 14 of April 24, 2017 ).
There are enough politicians with ambitions in the Urals - this is the leader of the local "Fair Russia" Alexander Burkov, and the mayor of Nizhny Tagil United Russia Sergei Nosov, and the former prime minister of the regional government Denis Pasler. However, Evgeny Roizman stands out even against their background.
He has a rich political background. One of the founders of the City Without Drugs Foundation, whose working methods are not considered by everyone to be impeccable, in the early 2000s, Roizman went into politics and almost immediately got into the State Duma in a single-mandate district, receiving 40% of the vote. He was an ardent parliamentarian - for example, during a broadcast on local radio, he proved his case with his fists to his Duma colleague Yevgeny Zyablitsev, who reproached Roizman for supporting the monetization of benefits, although he, unlike his opponent, voted against.
In 2007, when many popular regional politicians were called to A Just Russia (the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, wanted to make the SR the second party in power), Evgeny Roizman also entered the list of Socialist-Revolutionaries in the parliamentary elections, but did not last long. The leadership of the party crossed out his name, as it is believed, at the request of Surkov.
The break in Roizman's political career lasted until the next parliamentary campaign - in 2011 he joined Mikhail Prokhorov's Right Cause and was supposed to be in the top three of the list. But during the elections, as you know, the party was crushed.
After this failure, the Yekaterinburg politician moved to the new party project of the oligarch - the Civic Platform - and with its support won the election of the mayor of Yekaterinburg. Roizman's opponent was the vice-governor Yakov Silin, who was supported by the head of the Sverdlovsk region Evgeny Kuyvashev.
Now Roizman, as promised, is going to fight for the post of governor with Kuyvashev himself - a Varangian, a native of the Tyumen region, a former member of the team of Sergei Sobyanin.
“In 2013, the situation was different: Roizman was supported by Vice Mayor Vladimir Tungusov, the actual owner of Yekaterinburg, who did not allow Kuyvashev to take control of the regional capital. Now Tungusov is a vice-governor, he successfully held elections to the State Duma in the region, ”explained a deputy of the Yekaterinburg City Duma on condition of anonymity.
According to an NT source close to the Kremlin, the solution to the “Sverdlovsk problem” was put off in Moscow for a long time - everything is too complicated. “It was discussed whether Kuyvashev would eventually go to the polls or not. Sobyanin managed to lobby him for a new term. There are, in fact, two problems in the Sverdlovsk region: a lot of bright figures, including Roizman, and Kuyvashev himself - the governor is unpopular, he has a low rating, ”the source clarified.
To be nominated, the mayor of Yekaterinburg needs to overcome the municipal filter by collecting the signatures of about 120 local deputies. Roizman considers this task difficult, but feasible. However, he is going to ask President Putin to cancel the municipal filter for those gubernatorial candidates who have already been elected deputies or heads of cities.
Self-nomination for the post of governor in the Sverdlovsk region is not provided, and media loyal to the city administration started a rumor that Roizman would be nominated by the Pensioners' Party. “I am considering proposals from several serious parties. The Party of Pensioners is not among them, I will never use such a name, ”Yevgeny Roizman himself commented on this information in a conversation with NT.
“This is a really excellent mayor who works in conditions of constant pressure and compromises,” Alexei Navalny described the head of Yekaterinburg in February during a trip to the capital of the Urals. Roizman, in turn, spoke positively about the anti-corruption rally on March 26: “Yekaterinburg! Well done to those who came out. Very worthy."
Roizman is a strong player who can stir up a protest even if he is not allowed before the elections, says Nikolai Mironov. According to him, the Kremlin is now at a crossroads: to allow Roizman before the elections or to conduct a sterile election campaign. In the first case, the politician will be able to say that the elections are undemocratic and illegitimate, and in the second case, the result will be unpredictable, because the mayor has mobilization opportunities and he knows how to gather rallies.
“The communist senator has support from the people, and Markhaev can impose a real struggle on Tsydenov, but in this case he risks falling into disgrace”
“Roizman cannot be called a brilliant mayor, but he is good at taking advantage of other people's mistakes,” Mikhail Vinogradov noted. In his opinion, it still remains a mystery whether the new team of the presidential administration decided to revise the achievements of their predecessors? The political scientist does not rule out that Yevgeny Kuyvashev will have to pass a survival test: “The governor must prove that “he is not Yeroshchenko to you.” Recall that in 2015, the current governor of the Irkutsk region, Sergei Eroshchenko, who also had a low rating, lost the election to the communist Sergei Levchenko. “There is already an agreement with the party that will nominate me. We will announce it publicly this week. Now I am traveling around the region, forming a program, a team - new supporters come every day. If I pass the municipal filter, nothing will stop me, I will win these elections, ”Yevgeny Roizman told NT.
Communist vs Varangian
In 2015, in Irkutsk, the Communist Party was able to surprise: gubernatorial elections are almost always won by candidates from the authorities. The Communists intend to repeat the Irkutsk success in Buryatia, where the president recently replaced one head of the Varangian Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn with another - Alexei Tsydenov, who worked as Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation and never lived in Buryatia. “The local elites successfully “ate” the previous governor and may try to repeat the attempt with the young acting governor in the September elections,” believes Mikhail Vinogradov.
The Communist Party will nominate as its candidate the senator from the Irkutsk region Vyacheslav Markhaev, the first secretary of the Buryat republican committee of the Communist Party. He is a former security officer, was the first commander of the Buryat OMON, completed his service in the bodies in 2006 as Deputy Minister of the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“There is a mood to concentrate forces on Buryatia. Sergei Levchenko and Anatoly Lokot (mayor of Novosibirsk, member of the Communist Party) agree to support Markhaev. There are also businessmen in the republic who are ready to help him. It all depends on the position of the senator himself, ”said an NT source in the leadership of the Communist Party.
Last week, Vyacheslav Markhaev decided on his position and announced his intention to participate in the elections.
Photo: Vova Zhabrikov /ura.ru/tass , Anton Lukanin/TASS, Mikhail Klimentyev/Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation/TASS, Kirill Kukhmar/TASS, Vitaly Nevar/TASS