As part of their competition – Newspaper Kommersant No. 142 (7343) dated 08/08/2022

On Saturday, the stage of registration of candidates for direct elections of governors, which will be held in September in 14 regions, was completed. The so-called municipal filter was able to overcome 77 nominees out of 88, that is, 87.5% of all participants – this is an absolute record since the restoration of direct gubernatorial elections in 2012 and the introduction of the “municipal filter”. Of the parliamentary parties, only the LDPR and the New People in Karelia failed to register their candidates. At the same time, in five subjects at once, everyone was admitted to the elections.

The most competitive situation has developed in Karelia, where Artur Parfenchikov, a non-partisan but nominated by United Russia, expects to extend his powers as head of the republic for another term. In addition to the parliamentary five, as many as eight “small parties” have announced their claims to this post in the region. Their candidates can hardly be considered real rivals for Mr. Parfenchikov, but exactly half of them achieved inclusion on the ballot – these are representatives of the Motherland, the Pensioners’ Party, the Party of Growth and the Democratic Party of Russia. Candidates from the “Communists of Russia”, the Russian Party of Freedom and Justice, the Cossack Party, the “Green Alternative” and – unexpectedly – the Liberal Democratic Party could not collect signatures.

According to the leader of the Karelian Liberal Democrats Alexander Pakkuev, who ran for governor, the current situation “raises many questions”: 30 years of occupying a place on the political Olympus – no? Recall that to register for the gubernatorial elections, you need to collect autographs from 5% to 10% of all municipal heads and deputies of the region (in Karelia – 7%). The same share of signatures should belong to the “upper” level municipalities, that is, the heads and deputies of districts and cities. Finally, “top level” signatures must be collected from at least three-quarters of the municipalities.

In addition to Mr. Pakkuev, Mikhail Fedorov, a nominee of the New People party, did not get on the ballot. The parliamentary “newbies” were sure until the very end that their candidate would overcome the municipal filter, however, according to the republican Central Election Commission, Mr. Fedorov submitted to the commission only 81 signatures out of 84 required. The party says that their candidate was let down by the municipal deputies of the Kondopoga district, who “at the last moment” and, possibly, “under pressure from the local leadership” refused to give him their signatures. “The municipal filter is an atavism. Probably, at one time he solved state problems, but in modern times he turned out to be a tool of political censorship for regional authorities, ”the New People press service told Kommersant, promising to take the initiative to reform the system for admitting candidates to gubernatorial elections” .

However, the head of the Karelian electoral committee, Alexei Bakhilin, assesses the situation differently. According to him, the wave of gubernatorial candidates “speaks of serious political activity in the republic”, and Mr. Fedorov was de jure the only one who was refused registration: all the rest simply did not bring signatures, and therefore “lost their candidate status.”

Despite the relatively high dropout of candidates in Karelia, the 2022 gubernatorial campaign set a record in terms of the percentage of registered participants: 77 out of 88 nominees, or 87.5%, received a candidate certificate. According to the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, since the return of direct elections in 2012, the campaigns of 2016 and 2021 (76% and 78% respectively), as well as 2017 (71%) were closest to this mark. The 2013 gubernatorial elections were the worst in terms of this indicator, during which only 43% of nominees reached registration (this was mainly due to the large number of self-nominated candidates in the Moscow mayoral elections, none of which, except for Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, were registered). On average, 64% of candidates pass the municipal filter.

The second largest number of “refuseniks” was the Yaroslavl region, where the acting governor, Mikhail Evraev, is going to the polls as a self-nominated candidate. There, the candidate from Yabloko, Sergei Balabaev, and auto mechanic Alexei Antipov, the second self-nominated candidate after the acting head of the region, failed to overcome the filter. It should be noted that the “municipal filter” introduced in 2012 is still an insurmountable obstacle for independent self-nominated candidates (that is, those who do not hold the post of interim governor or current head). The 2022 elections were no exception: in addition to Yaroslavl, two self-nominees in the Kirov region and one in Mari El did not pass registration.

Also, two candidates failed to overcome the barrier in Udmurtia – these are the nominees of the “Communists of Russia” and the Party of the Revival of Russia. In all other regions, the non-admission to the gubernatorial elections was episodic, that is, one participant could not pass the filter: in the Novgorod region, the candidate from Yabloko failed to cope with this, in Ryazan – from Motherland, in Saratov – from the Party of the Renaissance of Russia, in Sverdlovsk – from the Russian National Union. In Buryatia, Kaliningrad, Tambov, Tomsk and Vladimir regions, all nominated candidates will take part in the elections.

Recall that in several regions, parliamentary parties themselves did not nominate candidates. So, in Mari El there is no nominee from the Communist Party, in the Tomsk region – from the Liberal Democratic Party, and “A Just Russia – For Truth” skips campaigns in Buryatia, Yaroslavl and Kirov regions. Finally, New People put forward candidates only in Karelia, Buryatia and the Sverdlovsk region.

Andrew Ashes