Candidates in competitive districts are withdrawn from the United Russia primaries

A number of participants in the United Russia primaries for the selection of candidates for deputies of legislative assemblies and municipal councils dropped out of the fight even before the vote. Such cases occurred, in particular, in Yekaterinburg and the Yaroslavl region, where the highest competition among candidates for nomination was previously noted.

The son of a State Duma deputy, and in the past – a famous biathlete and skier, two-time Olympic champion Sergei Chepikov, Prokhor withdrew his candidacy from the United Russia primaries for the selection of candidates for deputies of the Yekaterinburg City Duma. Information about his participation has disappeared from the party website of the preliminary vote. Chepikov Jr. planned to participate in the primaries in single-mandate constituency No. 10, where the son of another deputy, Vyacheslav Vegner Alexander, the head of the commission on inter-parliamentary activities of the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region, is running.

The removal of Prokhor Chepikov from the United Russia primaries in Yekaterinburg is not the first such case. On April 24, a few days before the deadline for submitting documents for participation in the preliminary voting, Viktor Testov, the only deputy chairman of the City Duma, left the fight of his own free will. In the single-mandate constituency No. 7, where he participated in the primaries, the current deputy of the City Duma Alexei Meshcheryakov was also announced. Testov explained his decision to leave politics by the desire to give way to the young. In early May, United Russia removed Eduard Mansurov, a former deputy of the Yekaterinburg City Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, from the primaries shortly after the video “United Russia deputy Eduard Mansurov throws mud at V.V. Putin” was published on YouTube.

There are also cases of removal of participants in the primaries of United Russia in competitive districts in the Yaroslavl region, where elections to the regional legislature will be held. Here Ilya Gorokhov, a deputy of the municipality (city duma) of Yaroslavl, withdrew his candidacy. He ran in single-mandate constituency No. 31, where the current senator from the Yaroslavl Regional Duma, Natalia Kosikhina, is also registered for participation in the preliminary voting, but remained a participant in the primaries on the party list.

Thus, in the event of Kosikhina’s victory in the elections and her re-delegation to the Federation Council in the single-mandate constituency No. 31, additional elections for the regional Duma deputy will have to be held next year. Deputy Director of Yaroslavsky Broiler JSC Olesya Mineeva withdrew her candidacy from the primaries in single-mandate constituency No. 22, in which Yana Karushkina, director of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company Yaroslavia, is running.

Sergei Perminov, deputy secretary of the General Council of United Russia, told Vedomosti that documents from candidates are being checked – there are rules governing the procedure for filing, registration, participation and withdrawal. “But there is no “personal factor,” he assured. According to Perminov, the party “is interested in the maximum number of candidates for candidates and the active participation of voters in choosing the best – worthy, according to voters, for nomination as candidates for the elections from United Russia.”

On May 3, Vedomosti reported that the most competitive United Russia primaries could be held in Yekaterinburg and the Yaroslavl region.

Voluntary withdrawal of participants from the race is most often the subject of agreements and negotiations, political scientist Yevgeny Minchenko believes. “As a rule, someone is persuaded to withdraw his candidacy, but in the next electoral season he was nominated for some other position,” he notes. According to political scientist Rostislav Turovsky, the primaries are becoming more manageable: “The party seeks to minimize the influence of the factor of inter-elite contradictions; when some candidates are removed, the winner becomes more obvious.”