What happened to your elections

"United Russia" as a detachment of political kamikaze

The four runoffs in the 2018 gubernatorial election turned out to be perhaps the most notorious failure of Kremlin policy in the last seven years. In a country where until recently 86% of citizens supported the president's course, and it was customary to laugh at a dissenting minority, supporters of a policy of stability suffered a record series of defeats. In two regions, the Vladimir Region and the Khabarovsk Territory, representatives of the formal opposition, LDPR candidates, won. In Khakassia, the candidate from United Russia was forced to withdraw his candidacy from participation in the second round, allegedly for health reasons. Primorsky Krai, where the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation won the actual victory, the CEC had to send it out of harm's way to repeat elections, which will now be held on the eve of the New Year - and it will definitely not be boring there.

How did it happen that United Russia is losing control over the situation in the regions, despite the fact that all the trump cards, from money and administrative levers to the absence of real competitors, seem to be still in their hands? One reason, of course, has to do with the fact that President Putin, whose ratings are still fairly high, is presented to voters as a politician who acts entirely independently of both the government and the nominal party in power. The last term in relation to United Russia, by the way, does not sound as persuasive on duty as it did a few years ago. Putin is not only distancing himself from United Russia, but also on the key issue of pension reform, he enters into polemics with them. At this time, representatives of other parliamentary parties publicly swear allegiance to the president and promise to "continue his course." So even citizens who are quite loyal to the current (presidential) government vote for the Liberal Democratic Party or the Communist Party with a pure heart.

Strategically, the defeat of the United Russia party can, of course, be directly linked to the pension reform, with which approximately the same 80% of citizens declared their disagreement. The unpopular triumvirate of United Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and liberal economists are now being publicly blamed for the reform. Medvedev and the economists did not need to go to the polls, but the United Russia members who had come forward in the regions resembled a detachment of political kamikazes. They needed to win the electorate by holding the retirement age bill. The calculation was based on the inertia of the political machine and the absence of resistance from other parties, and in most regions this bet was fully justified. A major tactical miscalculation was made in Primorye, where, in order to strengthen the positions of the interim and United Russia candidate Tarasenko, who had posed with Putin the day before at the Eastern Economic Forum, it was decided to hold the second round a week earlier.

Then a standard mechanism was launched, well described in political science. Citizens who did not see the point in participating in politics under the conditions of “electoral authoritarianism”, that is, in a situation where a well-known candidate wins any election anyway, became interested in the second rounds. The second round in the gubernatorial elections is an occasion to come to the polling station and express all your claims to the authorities by the very same “protest vote”.

It is no coincidence that the turnout in the second round was higher than during the single voting day on September 9: angry citizens got up from the couch.

An absurd scandal in Primorye, arranged by the incompetent headquarters of candidate Tarasenko, was widely discussed in the country as a result, and a week later it easily spread to neighboring Khabarovsk. People saw that United Russia could lose, and the elections instantly became an interesting event. For this reason, candidate Sergei Furgal, who had already announced that he was ready to become United Russia deputy Vyacheslav Shport in the future "coalition government", had no chance of losing the election.

After the collapse in Primorye, United Russia no longer had time to mobilize its own electorate by the usual methods, and the smartest thing that came to their mind was to take a break in Khakassia. Probably, there were hotheads in the campaign headquarters who suggested drawing the “correct results”, no matter what. But when an opposition candidate leads with 70% of the vote, as happened in Khabarovsk, the drawing limit is reached, such a crushing defeat cannot technically be presented as a modest victory. In Vladimir, no exit polls were published after the polling stations were closed, and the first CEC data indicated that the opposition candidate had a minimal advantage. But even there, as a result, plans for forced stability were abandoned.

Perhaps the most comical part of these elections is connected with the desire of the Kremlin political technologists to retroactively present everything that is happening as a clever multi-move. The media first published "exclusive information" that the ridiculous stuffing and exercises of the Ministry of Emergency Situations at polling stations were deliberately planned in order to achieve the cancellation of the election results. Then there was a lot of speculation that the Kremlin didn’t really want United Russia to become the governor of Khabarovsk, while Furgal, on the contrary, is a “conventional candidate”, etc. All that is left for the professionals who lost the elections is to maintain the illusion of controllability of the political process in Russia.

Now the restructuring of the political field will develop in two directions. On the one hand, the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party can ride a huge wave of indignation associated with pension reform.

Moreover, perhaps this will happen even against their will, as happened with the victory of Furgal in Khabarovsk.

Trial balloons for further strengthening of the “systemic” opposition were launched by talk of forming a coalition of two parties in Vladimir and Khakassia (the post of governor is still vacant in the latter). On the other hand, the Kremlin can “punish” the disobedient winners, who will now be treated as “non-systemic oppositionists”, that is, as Navalny. The presence of such a position is written with reference to Vedomosti's own sources.

Until now, the parties of Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky have done everything to save the collapsing political system, imitate democracy and demonstrate loyalty to the Kremlin's course. If now they are punished for this, the political suicide bombers will be left face to face with the people.