City-level trolling – Kommersant

The Yekaterinburg branches of United Russia (ER) and Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) complained to the election commission about fake banners and leaflets placed on their behalf as part of the campaign for elections to the City Duma. So, the head of the city of United Russia Aleksey Orlov was depicted on posters next to candidates from opposition parties, and the head of the regional committee of the Communist Party, Alexander Ivachev, was accused of clannishness on behalf of the SRZP. The expert believes that such actions should be taken only as “trolling of opponents”, since they will not bring real electoral dividends.

Yekaterinburg residents noticed the first portion of pseudo-agitation on several billboards at the beginning of last week. On posters with the inscription “Ekaterinburg is developing”, Mayor Alexei Orlov, who heads the list of United Russia in the elections to the City Duma, was alternately depicted next to opposition candidates – City Duma deputies Victoria Ivacheva, Roman Stupnikov (both from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), Mikhail Vechkenzin (SRZP) and Konstantin Kiselev ( “Apple”). There were no obligatory imprints for propaganda products. The posters were removed from billboards a few hours later.

Later, unknown persons massively pasted up leaflets with a portrait composed of two halves of faces – the first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, deputy chairman of the regional parliament Alexander Ivachev and his wife Victoria, who is running for the City Duma from the Communist Party. The common head of the communists was crowned with horns, and the image was supplemented by the signatures “False communists” and “Husband and wife are one Satan!”. The inscription in party colors “Fair Russia” against family clans” and the imprint indicated that the large-scale circulation (50 thousand copies) was allegedly paid for by the Right Russians. Leaflets were placed on free surfaces (stops, entrances, fences) in constituency No. 22 of the Chkalovsky district, where Ms. Ivacheva is elected.

Both affected parties – ER and SRZP – complained about fake campaigning to the Lenin Territorial Electoral Committee (TEC), which organizes elections to the City Duma. “It has been established that the campaign materials were not ordered or paid for by the campaign participants officially. We turned to the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Yekaterinburg with a proposal to suppress illegal campaigning activities and bring the perpetrators to justice, ”Vadim Antoshin, chairman of the TEC, told Kommersant.

According to an informed interlocutor of Kommersant in the Urals market of political technology services, one of the candidates who appeared on the banner in the company of the head of the city used false campaigning with the symbols of United Russia, and the other three were “stuck on as a distraction”. Leaflets with a married couple from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were not ordered by either the Right Russians or the Communists themselves, the source believes: “This is not a “crossbow” and, of course, not any Socialist-Revolutionaries – for them, this story is just the most painful.”

“There are no special hopes that performers will be found,” Alexander Ivachev complained in an interview with Kommersant. “Practice shows that this almost never happens.” At the same time, he stated that he “understands” the orderers of the action, and these are not Right-wing Russians: “There is only one opponent who (in this.— “b”) is interested, and this opponent is using such dirty technology.” However, Mr. Ivachev did not name this person. He also believes that in the end the situation will play in the negative for competitors and in plus for the communists, because “the voters are smart and guess who did it.”

Konstantin Kiselyov, who was involved in false campaigning for EP, told Kommersant that he perceived his appearance next door to the mayor as a contrast: “In my heart, political technology, I was not against it.” At the same time, the candidate was puzzled that four politicians from three “ideologically disparate” groups “agreed” on the false campaign: “I can’t guess what unites these four figures and who should have done it.” According to Mr. Kiselev, he also brought a statement to the election commission, in which he indicated that he did not give permission for the use of his image, and asked to eliminate the violation: “They looked at me and said:“ They have already removed it, the violation has been eliminated. ”

Ural political scientist Aleksey Shaburov notes that such technologies have been practiced in Yekaterinburg for a long time, but “compared to what it was in the nineties and zero, this is child’s play.” Now dishonest methods are used rather out of old memory, the expert believes. “There is a belief that black PR is needed, and there is a budget, so they come up with such stories,” Mr. Shaburov explains. But such actions, in his opinion, should be perceived only as “trolling opponents”, since their electoral effectiveness is minimal: “Yes, the political party discusses everything, laughs, sends it to each other, but this is the same as in the Telegram channel funny post the picture. It’s just that the budget is a hundred times larger, so they pasted everything with these pictures. ”

Grigory Leiba; Vasily Alekseev, Yekaterinburg