Experts assessed the electoral prospects of the “Family Values ​​Party”

The For the Family party, if registered by the Ministry of Justice, intends to fight for seats in regional parliaments this fall, Andrei Kormukhin, chairman of the party and founder of the Forty Sorokov Orthodox movement, told Vedomosti. According to him, delegates from 57 subjects of the Federation took part in the founding congress. The creation of regional branches will be possible only after the registration of the party. Kormukhin found it difficult to specify in which of them the party intends to participate in the September elections.

“We are on a tight timeline until the registration of the party. There is very little time left for her to get into the electoral cycle. All our efforts are now focused on submitting documents to the Ministry of Justice for registration much faster. Then the Ministry of Justice will have 30 days to register, and the election campaign will begin in early June. If we manage to register by this time, we will be able to talk about in which regions we will start the election campaign,” he said.

The founding congress of the traditionalist party “For the Family” was held on March 25 in Moscow. Its participants adopted a charter and program, elected a political council. In addition to Kormukhin, it included co-founder of the Forty Sorokov movement, Russian boxing champion Vladimir Nosov, SVR general, historian and publicist Leonid Reshetnikov, coordinator of the anti-abortion project “Skhvatka” Artyom Ukolov, journalist Anna Shafran and others. reported in the party’s Telegram channel.

The reports of the speakers at the congress fit into the formula “For Faith, Autocracy, Family, Fatherland”, noted in his Reshetnikov channel. He believes that this is the first “promising attempt” in 30 years to structure and institutionalize the disparate conservative forces of the countries. Among the main tasks fixed in the party program is the protection of the Russian family and traditional spiritual and moral values, the creation of conditions for large families.

Kormukhin stressed that For the Family cannot be considered a mono-confessional or mono-national party, since among its supporters there are also residents of republics where they predominantly profess Islam, but also share traditional spiritual and moral values. “Some of our enemies are trying [их] unfasten us for some reason,” he said.

All parliamentary parties are also “for the family” – all the work of the State Duma is aimed at strengthening motherhood, childhood, large families, Yaroslav Nilov, deputy head of the LDPR faction in the State Duma, told Vedomosti. According to him, the new party has yet to find its voter. And to participate in the elections – and sufficient funding. “Any election campaign, especially for a new structure, is always difficult. If they find their niche, then for God’s sake,” he said.

After the start of the special operation, all factions in the State Duma act as a “united front” on issues related to the protection of the family, childhood, motherhood, agreed the deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Education, Yana Lantratova (“Fair Russia”). “I don’t know if it is necessary to create a special party, but in general I am always in favor of having more structures that help children,” she told Vedomosti.

State Duma deputy, head of the press service of the Communist Party Alexander Yushchenko also turned out to be quite supportive of the new project because of its ideological component. If this party is not created to carry out political technology “pointers”, then it has prospects as a political force, behind which [пойдет] a large number of people professing family traditions, he believes.

“In any case, we will always promote the movement that stands for our traditional historical values, for traditionalism, for supporting children and families,” Yushchenko told Vedomosti. At the same time, “For the Family” should have primary organizations, structures that are created “from above” have no future, he noted. As conditions for the existence of the party, the deputy named a developed ideology, a good “personnel component” and material support.

The issue of funding may become important for the new party. As Shafran clarified, now “For the Family” has neither administrative nor financial resources, and funds for holding the founding congress were collected “by the whole world”, “in a hat”. Many donated 50, 100 rubles, stated She is in her Telegram channel. Shafran also claims that the Russian businessman, head of the Tsargrad group of companies, Konstantin Malofeev, has “nothing to do” with the party, and the new project “consciously” does not enter into relations with anyone who can influence his policy. By data Kommersant, 3 million rubles were spent on organizing the congress.

Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov believes that the new brand appears with “some very powerful” support, and this is one of the few ways to draw attention to it. “Now there is a situation of reduced interest in parties and party activity in conditions when the majority [из них] purely superficially merged in one of the key issues. The time for launching new brands is not easy,” he told Vedomosti.

The theme of family values ​​is used “plus or minus” by all parties, and there is no novelty, the expert noted. In addition, the popularity of radical traditionalism in Russia is exaggerated, so the electoral potential of For the Family cannot be considered sufficiently promising, Vinogradov said.

The party has chances of registration, it is well suited to the current agenda, but its electoral prospects are not obvious, agrees Rostislav Turovsky, vice president of the Center for Political Technologies. “I would expect only targeted and top-sanctioned cases of inclusion in local campaigns, as an experiment. Given the ideology, the party competes with almost all Duma parties that do not need it,” he told Vedomosti.

The emergence of this party is an echo of the COVID-19 pandemic, political analyst Alexei Makarkin believes. At first, believers were unable to visit temples during the period of lockdown and restrictions, then some of them did not accept vaccinations and QR codes due to religious beliefs, but at the same time remained absolutely loyal to the authorities. And the creation of “For the Family” is an attempt to consolidate these people, Makarkin said.

With the start of a special military operation, the role of people who are ready to “go for power in both fire and water” has increased, the expert believes. And in the context of a systemic conflict with the West, the state was offered an Orthodox, anti-Western, patriotic party that supports traditional values. “So far, this is just an application for participation. And then we’ll see what will happen to the party at the stage of preparing the registration,” he said.

There are currently 29 registered political parties in Russia. 27 of them, according to the Ministry of Justice, have the right to participate in elections.