candidates for mayor of Moscow started the campaign modestly, many at their own expense

Candidates for the post of mayor of Moscow began the campaign modestly, and many even at their own expense, follows from the first financial reports published this week. The richest candidate at this stage turned out to be State Duma Vice Speaker Vladislav Davankov, and self-nominated Alexander Gorlov did not spend money on elections at all. In any case, it will be a low-budget campaign, the expert assumes, but this does not mean that it will be uninteresting: the parties simply rely not on visual campaigning, but rather on the series of events.

The Moscow City Electoral Committee published the first financial reports of candidates for mayor of Moscow – according to the data presented, only six of the 12 nominated candidates submitted them. At the same time, one of them, self-nominated Alexander Gorlov, reported on zero receipts to his electoral account (he did not submit a signature to the election commission to overcome the municipal filter and, thus, dropped out of the race). Only five candidates who signed municipal deputies in their support declared that they had funds in their electoral accounts: the current mayor Sergei Sobyanin (United Russia), Moscow City Duma deputy Leonid Zyuganov (KPRF), State Duma deputy Dmitry Gusev (A Just Russia – For Truth) ), as well as the vice-speakers of the State Duma Boris Chernyshov (LDPR) and Vladislav Davankov (New People).

Mr. Davankov turned out to be the richest at the start of the campaign: almost 3.28 million rubles were credited to his account, the main part of the funds was transferred by the party that nominated him, another 100 thousand rubles was a donation from a certain citizen. Almost half of the funds – 1.8 million rubles – the candidate managed to spend, and, as follows from the report, not on collecting signatures or campaigning, but on paying for services under contracts and “other expenses” associated with the campaign. So far, Sergei Sobyanin has only 500 thousand rubles on his account, all the money was donated by legal entities, 122 thousand of which the current mayor spent, for the most part also on “other expenses”.

But Leonid Zyuganov and Boris Chernyshov spent their personal money at the start of the campaign: Mr. Zyuganov contributed 150,000 rubles to the election fund. own funds and spent two thirds of this amount, Mr. Chernyshov limited himself to the amount of 93.6 thousand rubles. and managed to spend everything under the same item “other expenses”. On the account of Dmitry Gusev 100 thousand rubles, the funds were transferred by the party that nominated him, and everything was also spent.

These are initial funds, and they were spent on collecting signatures necessary to overcome the municipal filter, Mr. Chernyshov explained to Kommersant his contribution to the election campaign. The main revenues to the electoral fund are still ahead: the candidate did not specify whether he intended to select the entire available limit of funds (the maximum size of the electoral fund for the election of the mayor of Moscow is 250 million rubles), but promised a “full-scale campaign.”

“I’m not ready to name the final amount of expenses yet, but it will be many times less than allowed,” because 250 million is a “huge amount,” Leonid Zyuganov told Kommersant. According to him, the budget of the campaign will consist of its own funds, donations and funds of the party, which supports its candidates in campaigns of any level. The final size of the fund will be determined by the decision of the leading party bodies based on the vision that the team will offer, the communist stressed. But the collection of signatures, the printing of sheets of support, the work of a notary are “already tangible costs,” which is why the deputy contributed personal funds for these purposes at the start of the campaign. In general, in the course of the upcoming campaign, the Communist Party plans to focus on the most effective technologies: there will be significantly less print campaigning, Internet resources will receive priority, Mr. Zyuganov added.

At the headquarters of Vladislav Davankov, they were surprised that other candidates for mayor had less campaign expenses, after all, even 3.5 million rubles is not God knows what budget. “We have already spent 1.7 million rubles. from the electoral fund,” the interlocutor told Kommersant. “The main expenses are the work of the team, lawyers, and the organization of meetings with residents. It is still difficult to name the total volume of the fund, it continues to be formed. I hope that contributions from supporters and trusted persons will continue to flow.”

Dmitry Gusev also told Kommersant that now it is difficult to name the approximate total amount of his fund: “How much we will collect. It’s a matter of fundraising.” Among the main items of expenditure, he named advertising, the Internet, the party newspaper. “I think the main items of expenditure will be the same for everyone,” the candidate noted.

Recall that following the results of the previous elections of the mayor of Moscow in 2018, Sergei Sobyanin spent the most, whose expenses reached 144 million rubles. Nominated by the Union of Citizens party, Mikhail Balakin then invested almost 28 million rubles in his election campaign, and the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kumin – 20 million. The most economical were the LDPR candidate Mikhail Degtyarev (13.7 million rubles) and the nominated ” A Just Russia” Ilya Sviridov (13.5 million).

Political scientist Konstantin Kalachev suggests that the financial performance of the current Moscow campaign will not exceed the result of five years ago. These elections will be low-budget, he is sure, partly because it corresponds to the mood in society: large-scale visual campaigning now would rather cause irritation. In addition, the attitude of people to traditional campaign products has also changed, everyone has “gone to the Internet,” the expert notes. It is no coincidence, in his opinion, that the parties are now trying to use new tools and rely on informational occasions. So far, Vladislav Davankov has been the best at this, who proposes either canceling homework for schoolchildren or introducing standards for preparing shawarma, the political scientist recalls. After all, a small budget does not mean that the campaign will be inactive – on the contrary, its participants are looking for and finding inexpensive, but effective tools, sums up Mr. Kalachev.

Anastasia Kornya, Elena Rozhkova