Elections without a choice. Sevastopol turns into a political swamp

On September 8, in Sevastopol, the largest city annexed by Russia, the Crimean Peninsula, the elections of deputies of the city legislative assembly of the second convocation are held. The representative body is elected by a mixed system. For 16 deputy mandates, six political parties are fighting: United Russia, the LDPR, the Communists of Russia, the Communist Party, the Party of Pensioners and “Fair Russia”. Another 8 chairs will be played among themselves, Majorian candidates.

The highest legislative body of Sevastopol of the first convocation was fully controlled by United Russia. The parties belonged to 22 out of 24. This time it is likely that the composition of the city parliament will be even more quiet, sterile, obedient and loyal. Although not according to the party belonging of deputies, but in fact. The model usual for Russian provinces will be reproduced in Sevastopol, because Moscow was pretty annoyed by the constant conflicts of the legislative assembly with the executive branch. Therefore, the main interest for the Kremlin in these elections is to get a legislative body in Sevastopol, which will not insert sticks into the wheels of the governor and create an unnecessary noise.

The script of the election race indicates that this goal will most likely be achieved. Here are five signs that the Sevastopol elections have practically nothing to do with the free will of citizens and that the “games in democracy” in the city, which became Russian as a result of the annexation of 2014, will end. There will be no one else to swing the boat.

1. They did not allow independent and "opposition" candidates to the election to the Legislative Assembly

The capital successfully exports its "best" political practices to the regions. Last summer - that in Sevastopol, in Moscow, was under the sign of a scandal related to the refusal of the horizontal committee to register candidates for municipal deputies. The reasons for the refusal in Sevastopol were the same, Moscow: supposedly candidates exceeded the percentage of marriage in the signature sheets.

Neither the supporters of Alexei Navalny, nor members of the Yabloko party, participated in the struggle for places in the Legislative Assembly, therefore, in their absence, just in case, the non -parliamentary political forces completely loyal to the Kremlin, the Party of the Great Fatherland, the Party of Russia's Veterans, as well as the Rodina and Green Party, just in case. Together with them, registration was refused one-mandate candidates. Most of them are well -known people who occupy an active social position, but have almost no experience in politics: the head of the Sevastopol Mom Public Organization Elena Golubeva, the head of the public organization Road Control - Sevastopol Maxim Mishin, blogger Ruslan Ostashko, chairman of the Sevastopol football Federation, businessman Alexander Krasilnikov and others.

Some of the failed candidates agreed with the claims of the election commission, some tried to defend their rights in court, but to no avail . As a result, only reliable people and parties fell into the ballots: either they have no chance of breaking through the city parliament, or they can be taken under control. If the parties were removed from the elections to exclude an element of accident (suddenly one of them suddenly got one or two mandate), then self-nominated socialists had quite real chances of the election, which is why they were removed away from sin. This gave a guarantee of the party in the authorities that for five years no one would pester it with initiatives from below on relevant for the city, but inconvenient for officials issues.

2. Putin changed the governor, which will inevitably add the votes of United Russia

On July 11, two months before the elections, the head of Sevastopol Dmitry Ovsyannikov fired at his own free will. She was accepted by President Vladimir Putin on the same day. This event was preceded by the collection of signatures under the demand to dismiss the governor, which was organized by members of the so-called team of the ex-head of the Legislative Aleking Aleksey Chalian. However, in modern Russia, governors are not fired at the request of some political groups and even more so local residents. This decision is made only by the head of state based on his own political interests.

Dmitry Ovsyannikov

Appointing Ovsyannikov to the governor's position in the summer of 2016 (the official of more than a year was temporarily acting until he was chosen during direct voting), the Russian president set the task of extinguishing an acute political conflict between the legislative and executive branches of power in Sevastopol. The war heading the city from 2014 to 2016 by Sergey Chanipolo with the Legislative Assembly, which was headed by Alexei Chaly, almost completely paralyzed the normal work of municipal authorities. In addition, political squabbles in the City of Russian Glory, to which, after the annexation of Crimea, increased attention was focused, spoiled the whole picture. The Kremlin carefully created the illusion of how the city, in a single impulse, swept away to loyalty to Moscow, straightened his shoulders and was prettier before his eyes. And the media at that time only wrote that the next skirmish of the city government and the city parliament.

Ovsyannikov received more than 70 percent of the vote in the elections. At the same time, he never won the citizens. Some Sevastopol residents sympathized with his personal qualities and humanly sympathized with the head of the city when in May 2019 he underwent surgery for appendicitis. Others (and there were much more) mercilessly scolded the governor for failures with road repair, construction of treatment facilities and the reconstruction of hospitals. But the main thing is that Ovsyannikov not only failed to negate the confrontation between the government and the legislative, but only aggravated it. According to the General Director of the Institute of Regional Problems Dmitry Zhuravlev , this is what caused the early resignation of the governor.

“Ovsyannikov was sent as a peacekeeper who was supposed to turn the conflict into a joint work, since he was not connected with the previous governor and problems of the city. But the task was not completed. It was not possible to build a calm business relationship and the governor. This could affect the elections, some candidates could play,” the political scientist said in an interview with Radio Freedom. Zhuravlev believes that the change of the head of the city will strengthen the position of candidates from the party in the election to the Legislative Assembly. “The departure of any governor is in a sense a zero decision. A man left, and problems have gone with him,” the expert noted.

The new acting governor Mikhail Razvozhaev is trying with all his might to the townspeople, and he succeeds. He personally travels to problem objects, talks with people, publicly reports subordinates for ridiculous decisions (for example, he scolded officials for the fact that in one of the villages near Sevastopol they arranged a polling station in the interior of the old trolley), and is actively conducting a telegram channel in which there are even humorous stickers with a portrait of the VIO. The dismissal of the “bad” governor and the appointment of “good” reduced the degree of dissatisfaction with power in general, and therefore “United Russia” really has a good chance to get additional votes simply by inertia.

3. The protest potential of the townspeople is transformed into the voices for the Podputin politicians

The last five years, in the wake of the confrontation with the executive branch, the supporters of Alexei Chally, who met in the Legislative Assembly, successfully played their opposition. They scolded the governor and opposed all unpopular decisions descended from Moscow - of course, not directly criticizing Vladimir Putin. At the same time, all of them were and remain members of the United Russia faction in the city parliament.

In the current elections, the "chassis team" decided not to abandon the tactics that has brought success for so long. The supporters of the former "people's mayor" decided to enter the new composition of the Legislative Assembly on the same fuel - the discontent of the townspeople by the actions of the authorities. In order not to scare away potential voters by the United Russia brand, most of them decided to run for self -nominated or candidates from other parties. The reception worked: the members of the Chalian team managed to mislead not only the Sevastopol residents, but also, for example, Alexei Navalny. The politician included two current deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Sevastopol from United Russia - Vyacheslav Gorelov and Alexander Kulagin - among the candidates for "smart voting". The candidates chosen by Navalny from his support, however, resolutely reject .

Everyone says that in the absence of other alternatives, Sevastopol residents dissatisfied with the authorities will support the candidates of the Chaliano team (if they come to the polls at all). This situation is beneficial to both the Kremlin and the city government: the protest potential of the townspeople is canalized in a relatively peaceful direction.

On January 16, 2016, the media wrote about the resignation of Alexei Chalian, who became famous during the annexation of Crimea

4. Black PR technologies are used to combat objectionable candidates

A scandalous incident that happened a week before the election is talking about a general (extremely low) level of political culture in the city. On the night of September 2, billboards appeared in Sevastopol with anti -advertising members of the Chalian team. On the law prohibited by law, candidates were guilty of that over five years of stay in the city parliament, they allegedly did not fulfill a single election promise. A candidate from the LDPR Ilya Zhuravlev suffered from fake leaflets.

Of course, no one, of course, took responsibility for provocation. The affected candidates themselves wrote off the machinations of competitors. The "dirty" PR landing was strongly condemned by the acting governor Mikhail Podvozhaev and representatives of the city election commission. The authorities promised to find and punish the guilty, law enforcement agencies took up their capacity. So far, the police, obviously, have not been able to take a trace of the attackers, despite the fact that they clearly used construction equipment in their work and acted on the main city highways under the aim of dozens of video surveillance cameras.

5. Citizens were covered by political apathy and a sense of hopelessness

According to the Sevastopol Political Heater, the Legislative Assembly is expected to be a record low turnout - about 28–32 percent. A significant part of the townspeople has lost any interest in what was happening in the political life of the city and confidence in candidates whose names have become familiar over the past five years.

The rejection of candidates conducted by the authorities led to the fact that new persons in the Legislative Assembly will not appear. In essence, there is no one to choose from, and therefore most of the Sevastopol residents simply ignore the elections. This situation, of course, will play into the hands of the ruling party, which traditionally can count on the "obligatory" voices of pensioners, security forces and state employees.

As a result, Sevastopol expectedly turns into a typical Russian region, where no political scandals occur and where the legislative and executive branch run in the same team. According to the Sevastopol businessman and politician Oleg Nikolaev , the city parliament of the second convocation will be faceless and will fall under the absolute control of the government. “This will be a standard legislative assembly, as in all other regions of the Russian Federation, it will not argue with the governor,” Nikolaev said in an interview with Kommersant.

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Under Ukraine, one of the most popular claims of Sevastopol to the central government was that the head of the city was appointed president of the country, and not elected by direct vote.

The chairman of the city state administration, who was seconded to Kiev, created a counterweight, as a rule, to a strongly pro -Russian representative body. During the events of the spring of 2014 related to the annexation of Crimea by Russia, dissatisfied with this circumstance, the Sevastopol residents demanded the opportunity to independently elect the city leader. Then it seemed that only the Russian Federation would provide such an opportunity.

After five years, in Russian realities, the Sevastopol residents almost lost the opportunity to influence the composition of the authorities. The governor is actually lowered to them “from above” and can be fired at any time. And now the elections to the city representative body have become completely fake.