Almost two dozen regional heads can run for re-election in the fall of 2024
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In addition to the presidential elections scheduled for March 17, a major campaign is expected in 2024 as part of a single voting day (VD) on September 8. The governors of the “2019 wave” will be up for re-election, many of whom, including St. Petersburg mayor Alexander Beglov, for the first time chose to run as self-nomination rather than from United Russia (UR). There are still a minimum number of new appointees, as in the first year after the start of the SVO, but this does not mean that after the end of the presidential campaign there will not be additional rotations, including unexpected ones, the expert warns.
In September, direct gubernatorial elections will be held in at least 16 regions: Astrakhan, Volgograd, Vologda, Kurgan, Kursk, Lipetsk, Murmansk, Orenburg, Sakhalin and Chelyabinsk regions, as well as in Bashkiria, Transbaikalia, Kalmykia, the Altai Republic, St. Petersburg and Stavropol . Three more subjects (Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Crimea) will receive heads as a result of voting in parliament. Most of the current governors in these regions are finishing their first term of office, while the Volgograd, Stavropol and Crimean leaders Andrei Bocharov, Vladimir Vladimirov and Sergei Aksenov are finishing their second.
In the status of acting governor, only the new head of the Vologda region, Georgy Filimonov, who was appointed president after the resignation of “old-timer” Oleg Kuvshinnikov on October 31, 2023, is approaching the elections. Vladimir Putin has not yet made any other replacements, so for the second year in a row the September campaign actually goes without autumn appointees. In 2022, let us remind you that the traditional “governor’s downfall” did not happen at all in the second half of the year.
It is interesting that Mr. Filimonov became the first who actually began preparing for the elections. On December 28, he posted on the region’s official legal information portal a draft law allowing self-nominated candidates to participate in elections. Currently, only political party nominees can run for office. According to the project, for self-nomination it will be necessary to collect signatures of 1% of Vologda voters, half of which can be submitted through Gosuslugi. After completion of the public discussion, the document will be submitted to the Legislative Assembly of the Vologda Region.
Last year, for the first time since 2017, there were no self-nominated governors in the elections. After the unsuccessful EDG 2018 for the United Russia, when United Russia lost to the opposition in three regions at once, the so-called young technocrats began to actively resort to this practice. In particular, already in 2019, half of the Kremlin appointees (6 out of 13 acting governors) ran for elections as self-nominated candidates: Igor Babushkin (Astrakhan region), Valery Limarenko (Sakhalin region), Vadim Shumkov (Kurgan region), Alexander Beglov (St. -Petersburg), Alexander Osipov (Transbaikalia) and Alexey Teksler (Chelyabinsk region).
In 2020, the situation repeated itself (4 out of 9 acting candidates were self-nominated), but after criticism from United Russia Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, self-nomination began to go out of fashion. The following year, out of six acting candidates, four were United Russia members, two more were representatives of the opposition, and then only the current governor of the Tula region, Alexey Dyumin, became a self-nominated candidate. In 2022, the acting heads of the Yaroslavl region and Mari El, Mikhail Evraev and Yuri Zaitsev, did without the party’s help, and six more came from United Russia. Finally, last year, all the leaders were nominated by United Russia members – both the recently appointed heads of Chukotka, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Smolensk and Omsk regions Vladislav Kuznetsov, Mikhail Kotyukov, Vasily Anokhin and Vitaly Khotsenko, as well as the current ones, including the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin, who previously ran for only on your own. The exceptions were the Oryol and Khakass communist governors Andrei Klychkov and Valentin Konovalov.
It is worth noting that over the last five years, United Russia has carried out an active campaign to return governors to party life. Thus, half of the self-nominated candidates in 2019, who can run for a second term this fall, after being elected joined United Russia and headed regional party cells – this is Alexey Teksler (became secretary of the branch in 2020), Valery Limarenko (in 2022) and Igor Babushkin (in 2023). They are likely to join the ranks of party nominees if they run again. In general, as Kommersant previously reported, during this time 47 out of 89 governors headed local United Russia organizations.
However, Vadim Shumkov, Alexander Beglov and Alexander Osipov still remain non-partisan. How their nomination may occur is still unknown. A source in the Trans-Baikal branch of United Russia told Kommersant that “consultations are still underway” on this issue, and an interlocutor close to the government and the governor’s office noted the high probability of his self-nomination: “Otherwise Osipov would already be in the party and would be actively involved in party projects.” At the same time, the source recalled that in the fall the governor, contrary to the wishes of the federal party leadership, did not head the regional branch.
As Vedomosti previously reported, St. Petersburg mayor Alexander Beglov is “highly likely” to seek a second term. Kommersant’s interlocutors in the local branch of United Russia say that his informal election headquarters is already being formed in the city, but there is no information yet about the method of nominating the governor. United Russia members are “with joy” ready to support Mr. Beglov, but “are awaiting a decision on the election program.”
United Russia has not yet discussed the issue of winning former self-nominated candidates to the party side, Deputy Secretary of the Party General Council Sergei Perminov assured Kommersant. He added that United Russia will return to discussing tactics at the Unified Democratic Party 2024 after the presidential elections – in April.
The number of gubernatorial campaigns in the EDG-2024 will further increase due to a shift in the agenda – from patriotic to socio-economic, which is beginning to “concern citizens more and more,” says political scientist Rostislava Turovsky. “This can be seen both in the topic of inflation and in the way people began to react sharply to problems in the housing and communal services sector. The governors will bear considerable responsibility; they may become “extreme,” the expert explains. I wouldn’t count on being able to run another successful campaign under the banner of patriotic consensus.” In addition, after the presidential elections there will not be without personnel changes at the top, which could affect the gubernatorial corps, Mr. Turovsky suggests: “Even small changes in the government often lead to castlings.”
As for the self-nomination of current governors, last year showed “a clear trend: it was a temporary phenomenon, and it is a thing of the past,” the political scientist believes. “Let’s not assume that again absolutely all governors will be nominated by the party. There may be one-time exceptions – for example, just in St. Petersburg. But due to the trend established in 2023 in all other regions, these will be party nominees,” sums up Rostislav Turovsky.
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