Gleb Kuznetsov: “The LSG system in Moscow is returning to the state that Luzhkov endowed it with”

“The topic of the Moscow municipal elections has died down despite the heroic efforts of both liberal and pro-government media to galvanize it. Various interested people have been warming it up all spring, warming it up, and now that’s it. Elections to municipal deputies have ceased to be interesting at all,” the political scientist writes on Facebook .

Why? I think like this:

1. The idea that the winner, who will have his own list of successful municipal deputies, “will nominate a candidate for mayor of Moscow,” has been weighed in the balance and recognized as lightweight. Why did we even - before the presidential, traditionally game-changing elections - decide that the filter would remain as it is today, or that the election of the head of Moscow would be direct at all? The opposition lists announced with pomp - Katz, Gudkov, Bogdanov, God knows who else - went into oblivion or into lethargy-pre-existence;

2. The main Moscow political enfant terrible, Navalny, did not show interest in these elections from the very beginning. He decides ontological things, disagreeing with the criminal regime on the agrarian issue, and does not at all push a thousand people deeply despised by him into some kind of mundep; The only time in 2017 he got a little excited about Moscow, when the anti-renovators showed that they were also the opposition, but “also the opposition” quickly merged, and the jealous Lesha lost interest immediately;

3. “Also the opposition”, one of the most promising and mediocre about, let’s say, lost projects, suddenly reached the major league, played once, saw that they were hitting their legs from behind, swearing from the stands, and injecting doping in the locker rooms , and returned to street football. Where it has “its own atmosphere”, its favorite five-story buildings and the hated one in Rakov’s blogs.

4. Since 2012, the successful municipal opposition has lost its former enthusiasm. These people - very worthy by the way - went “to power” on the wave of the Bolotnaya protest. They wanted - some sincerely - to participate in the management of the city, to change the life of their district, and through it the city and the country, and so on and so forth. However, it turned out that “to power” means anywhere except to Moscow municipalities. There is no power, no money, but they ask you as if you are the real power. Enthusiasm faded. A bunch of people who were in the opposition parliaments didn’t even come forward. Young life is more valuable than mortal boredom and sluggish conflicts with the head of the council.

“A municipal deputy in Moscow is one of the last places on earth where an active person participates in the governance of the city,” this is the conclusion of one of my fellow municipal deputies from Bolotnaya, whom there is absolutely no reason not to believe;

5. The mayor's office, sensitively perceiving the change in mood in the flock of its opponents, also decided to relax. And she released state employees - teachers/doctors, whose main task, apparently, will be to prevent any interest or lively activity even from the “loyal” public. State employees are the eternal companion of boring elections. “If there are no opponents, why put on a show? Let Berlaga out! - Who exactly? The head teacher or the head of the medical department? - Both,” the look at Tverskaya, 13, is, of course, barbaric, but true.

So, despite all the threats, all the promises to “fight,” all the “premonitions” and rallies, the LSG system in Moscow is returning to the state with which Yu. M. Luzhkov endowed it. To be an appendage of the system of state power. And then the by-elections in Yaroslavl arrived with a great turnout of 6.5%.

That is, any double-digit turnout in Moscow may be interpreted as a success and triumph of public interest in the elections. This is where articles appear like yesterday’s bulletin: “High competition with low turnout.”

My forecast is that the turnout will be 11-15%. Each five-mandate district will have one or two oppositionists, which on average for a hospital (and at the same time for schools and social services) will give United Russia 60-80% of the mandates. And everyone will be happy. And Katz, and Tverskaya 13, and Gudkov."