“Veterans of Svo” are almost invisible in today's elections. Calculation of "important stories"
Date 6 Sept. 2024 Author Evgenia Alekseev Dmitry Medvedev meets with war participants in Ukraine - candidates for upcoming elections photo: Sputnik / Pool / EPA / Scanpix / Leta
At the beginning of 2024, Vladimir Putin said that the participants in the war in Ukraine should become a new Russian elite: "to go to leading positions ... in state -owned companies, business, in state and municipal administration, and leading regions, enterprises." The elections that have started in Russia today show that so far Putin does not succeed: the participation of “Veterans of Svo” in them is almost imperceptible, and the share of military personnel among candidates does not even reach 0.5%. “From the point of view of Putin, Wow Veterans is a new elite. But the old elite did not agree with this. People hold on to their places, ”the expert is ironic.
The “veterans” themselves, who nevertheless reached the election, admitted “important stories” that they would prefer trenches: they have no idea what to do if they are chosen somewhere. We tell you that it is known about the real support of “Veterans of Svo” in the elections and their plans for a political career.
What do we know about the support of “Veterans of Svo” following the results of the primaries of “United Russia”
From the four largest parties in the elections, 495 “Veterans of Svo” participate : 380 from “United Russia”, 50 from Just Russia, 35 from the Communist Party and 30 of the LDPR. This is less than a percent of the total number of candidates registered on the CEC website, calculated “important stories”.
United Russia believes that the participants in the war in Ukraine "enjoy well -deserved respect in society" and " become an important part of the new wave of political leaders." The real support of such candidates can be judged by the results of the primaries of United Russia - internal preliminary elections in the party that took place in May. Less than two percent of all candidates were connected with the war in Ukraine, “important stories” calculated: 219 people - “participants of Svo”, three - officials and volunteers who help the front, as well as a military physician and widow of “Veteran of Svo”.
What are primaries and why are they carried out?
The primaries is a preliminary internal party vote for the selection of candidates who will be registered for the elections. United Russia has been conducting primaries since 2007.
The party states that the primaries are needed for conducting “competitive, open and legitimate” elections. However, preliminary voting is almost always taking place before the official declaration of elections. Because of this, United Russia has an extra time for election campaigning and preparing for the elections.
The primaries are most often carried out in areas whose location and composition of the organizers coincide with these voting sites. Outwardly the primaries are made out as a real vote. In preliminary elections, state employees are often forced to participate, although anyone can vote.
The primaries are regulated only by the Charter of United Russia and the intra -party position about this procedure. The results of the preliminary voting are not required. The first place on primaries does not mean that a person is put forward in real elections. This decision is made by the party leadership.
The worst results on the primaries “Veterans of Svo” were shown in Moscow: out of 15 people, not one won. The veteran of the Second Chechen War Arkady Korolkov, who is called the “Veteran of Svo”, entered the three leaders of the leaders. However, Korolkov did not fight in Ukraine - he collects humanitarian assistance and equipment for the Russian military. He also holds the position of adviser to the managing director of the Design Bureau of Instrument Engineering, which develops weapons for the Ministry of Defense.
Real participants in “Svo” in Moscow took places in the second half of the final lists, gathering ten times less votes than the winners of the primaries. For example, the son of a State Duma deputy from Fair Russia and KGB General Nikolai Ryzhak Konstantin Ryzhak, who fell into the war on mobilization and commanded a motorized rifle platoon, received only 34 votes. The son of the artist Oleg Gazmanov Rodion Gazmanov, nominated in the same constituency, is more than five thousand votes. Only four ESVENI candidates were able to overcome the threshold in a hundred votes.
The Moscow Region became the leader in the number of candidates participating in the war, the Moscow Region, only half of them reached the main elections.
In United Russia, specially for the “veterans of Svo” on the primaries introduced additional support. They automatically added 25% of the vote, and it was impossible to remove them from the primaries without coordination with a higher party instance.
“This is important because it shows the level of unpopularity of the participants as politicians - they cannot independently defeat even during the domestic voting of United Russia,” the Voice movement wrote .
However, this did not help the participants in the war in the preliminary elections. Only in 12 of 43 regions, where “Veterans of Svo” participated in the primaries, all candidates with combat experience reached the main elections. In the seven regions, not a single candidate is registered for the elections. By September, only half of the participants in the primaries who fought in Ukraine were able to get the status of a registered candidate in the main elections - 111 people.
“Voters are not enthusiastic about their candidates,” said Roman Udot, an electoral expert and former member of the Voot Voot Council. According to him, supporters of the war believe that the military needs to return to the front, and opponents as a whole do not agree with the position of “veterans of the Svo”. It is unprofitable for candidates that they participated in his, the expert believes.
According to the sociologist and director of the Levada Center, Denis Volkov, the candidate’s combat experience is important for a few more than a third of voters, mainly older people, viewers. The rest belong to the status of the "veteran of the same" neutral.
"I will win - well, no - also good"
Some candidates who fought in Ukraine lead social networks and talk about their new political activity. Basically, they go to the families of war participants, collect humanitarian aid for the front or participate in celebrations.
But not everyone dreams of a political career. And while independent candidates are removed from the elections due to different widths of the lines in signature sheets and wrong leaflets , war participants are running for no election campaign and even the desire to win.
22-year-old Zamir Gusov from Karachay-Cherkessia admitted in a conversation with “important stories” that he has no plans if the deputy was elected to the local national assembly, and in politics he was only in 2023. “I was sent from work to mass events, and I gained popularity. People began to find out that there was a young guy in the republic, who at the age of 19 went to war. And he rushed, ”he said. At the preliminary vote, Gusov gained more than ten thousand votes.
Zamir Gusov, candidate for deputies of the People's Assembly of Karachay-CherkesiiFoto: Page Zamir Gusov in VK
To win and become a deputy "Veteran" is not burning with desire. “I'll win - well, no - also not bad. I'm 22, and there are adult colleagues. They have more experience than mine. Sometimes there is a feeling of fear that you will be deceived somehow. They will say something, and this will be wrong. I would better return to the front, but I can’t because of the wound ( he lost his leg in the war.-Approx. Ed.) . The experience that people receive there will never come in handy anywhere. Only in war, ”says Gusov.
Another candidate for deputies of Karachay-Cherkessia, 26-year-old Maxim Zhilin , also does not know what to do in the event of an election. In politics, he said, he was “entered”: “They didn’t say anything yet how everything will be arranged, but I think they will tell, show, explain what to do. So far I have not done anything in politics yet, they just entered me and that’s it. ”
Maxim Zhilin,, candidate for deputies of the People's Assembly of Karachay-CherkesiiFoto: ANO page “Workshop of Social Media Projects” in VK
Zhilin, like Gusov, would prefer to go not to the parliament, but to the war: “I would like to return a year ago, to avoid that wound to spend time with the boys. So somehow it’s easier. ”
Now Zhilin, he said, is working in the regional branch of the Defender of the Fatherland Foundation, which helps the war participants in Ukraine and their relatives. When asked about the continuation of the war, he admitted that he wanted "to end with everything as soon as possible and more people to return home." But since “Ukraine will not go to our conditions”, “the recently joined regions must be completely cleaned, I would really like Odessa, but there will already decide how the authorities will decide.”
The 64-year-old candidate for Sterlitamak Ramil Fasikov , who "at the call of the heart, became a volunteer who concluded a contract for participation in his own, never thought about a political career. The man told “important stories” that he was offered to participate in the elections and he decided not to refuse. In case of victory, Fasikov plans to help the participants in the war in Ukraine and their relatives. “There are [problematic] moments, not always everything turns out for people with payments. I will be able to help from a different level, to achieve social assistance for them, ”he said.
Ramil Fasykov, candidate for deputies of the Council of the City District Sterlitamak photo: "United Russia"
ESVEOSID candidates were recruited for elections only because of Putin’s requirements, according to the electoral expert Roman Udot: “It was a gesture of United Russia to show that they were listening to the leadership. Everything looked as if the military actively supported, but in fact there are few of them among all candidates. The party played the game with the authorities, and everyone was satisfied. Officials remained in their places, and the military was poured. ”
Whether the current military people go to politics
Despite Putin’s statements about the “New Elite”, there are few military personnel in politics. Only 0.5% of all candidates who were nominated in the current elections, (380 people) have the status of the current military, considered “important stories”. Whether they fought in Ukraine is unknown.
As we thought
From the CEC website, we have collected data about all candidates in regional, city and municipal elections. We determined the candidate’s belonging to the number of existing military by information about the profession and place of work. Our list includes people who indicated the work of the military unit, the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, volunteer formations or assault brigades, as well as those who indicated that his profession is a soldier. We did not take into account the librarians, cleaners or storekeepers who work in military units, as well as employees of military accounting tables.
The number of candidates is not equal to the number of “Veterans of Svo”. Firstly, personnel military personnel who did not take part in the war in Ukraine could get into our list. Secondly, some of those who participated in the war did not fall into it, because after returning from the front, some fighters work in civilian professions or have the status of unemployed. There are no marks about the participation of a candidate in the war in Ukraine on the CEC website.
The largest share of the military among all the candidates was in the annexed Sevastopol - 5%, or every twentieth running. Then go the Ulyanovsk region - 3.6%, North Ossetia - 2.5%and the Jewish autonomous region - 2.2%. In almost half of the regions (36), the share of the military does not exceed a percentage, in another 30 subjects, military personnel were not at all advanced.
The current military are usually running from United Russia - 35% of them became candidates from this party. Every fourth soldier (26%) went to the elections as a self -nominated person.
The military often go to the elections as independent candidates because of their “inconvenience” for parties, analyst Roman Udot is sure . “They are not like to take them in the parties because they are opposition and critically tuned to officials. They cannot be restrained. They require a more serious attitude towards themselves, ”Udot said.
24 military personnel were refused registration, another 19 lost the status of a nominated candidate, and 12 people dropped out. More than half of the military who have not reached the election are self -nominated. The status of a registered candidate was received by 325 people - 85% of the number of nominated military personnel. Moreover, among all candidates, the share of registered above is 91%.
According to the electoral expert Roman Ventut, there are so few military among candidates, because regional politicians do not want to accept them. “In fact, parties and authorities are not eager to attract the military to the polls. Officials and deputies do not need competitors. From the point of view of Putin, Wow Veterans is a new elite. But the old elite did not agree with this. People hold on to their places, ”Udot said.
The electoral expert also indicates that they do not want to share the money that are present in the authorities with the military: “officials willing more willingly go to the front, take a picture there and come back. This is better for their PR and position. ”
