Experts expect a transformation of the Russian party system, despite all its advantages

Russia’s multi-party system is stable and successfully copes with the main function assigned to it – political representation, but transformation still awaits it. Such conclusions were reached by the participants of the round table of the Civil Society Development Fund (CSDF). United Russia will definitely be able to get through these changes and strengthen, but most other parties are not even guaranteed survival.

Presented at the round table on February 16, the author’s classification of ForGRO divides the latest party history of the Russian Federation into several stages: the emergence of the system (from the late 1980s to 2001), the construction of national parties (2001–2011) and, finally, “representative multi-party system” (from 2012 to present). Now parties are ranked in several divisions depending on the electoral result. The number of outsiders, many of whom, according to the concept, were created for purely political technological purposes, has been reduced through the efforts of the Ministry of Justice since 2016, and by 2024 there were 25 players left in the party arena.

The key criterion for the success of the system is the ability of parties to solve the problem of political representation, explained the head of ForGRO Konstantin Kostin. If the aggregate rating of Duma parties is at the level of 80%, and other players add another 5–7% to the indicator with results in the regions, then the system is effective, adaptive and meets the needs of citizens, he noted.

VTsIOM employee Mikhail Mamonov shared the figures: in 2024, almost 69% of Russians are ready to vote for at least one of the parliamentary parties (versus 60.6% in January 2021), and another 9.4% is accumulated by non-parliamentary players (versus 13% in 2021). According to focus groups, the growth of indicators was set by the “Donbass consensus” and “socio-political consolidation”, which changed the agenda and information space, said Mr. Mamonov: “The trend has been set for a non-confrontational model of behavior of Russians: they are closer to the position declared by the authorities.” “Figures and trends allow us to declare an increasingly successful implementation of the function of political representation: existing parties consolidate the absolute majority of Russians’ opinions, while the non-parliamentary opposition is losing its position against the backdrop of a general increase in the legitimacy of the Russian political system,” the sociologist concluded.

“Probably everyone present feels a conflict between statements about how colossal public expectations and demands for party activities are, and not the most prominent place on the parties’ agenda,” Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, commented on these data. According to him, the contradiction is due to many reasons. Among the main ones are historical skepticism about parties, the conflict between “the party system and the non-party executive,” the general crisis of the mechanisms of parliamentary control, as well as the absence in the political language of categories of goals and interests, without which it is impossible to wage a battle of ideologies.

At the same time, the parties themselves are not interested in exchanging their place in the coalition structure for an opposition activist, Mr. Vinogradov pointed out: they continue to work on a “nominal agenda”, speak a complex language and mainly with activists, without creating among apolitical viewers “the feeling that this is like – concerns them.” Thus, a conflict arises between the “nationwide rhetoric” of all players and the realities in which the audience perceives parties as “a separate class living in its own vacuum,” the political scientist concluded: “These challenges are not critically significant for the system, but they also do not work to create an idea of that parties are “our everything.”

A new stage of development awaits the party system ahead, which will lead to changes in the proportions of representation and, probably, the number of parties, said political scientist Alexey Chesnakov, in turn. The nearest control point is 2036, when the presidential and Duma electoral cycles will meet again on the calendar. At the same time, history will present the main challenge not to specific parties, but to the very structure of their perception “as the only mechanism of political mobilization,” added Mr. Chesnakov.

The “Donbass consensus” will not last forever: the next stage will present “serious challenges” to the players, Konstantin Kostin warned: “We live in conditions of deferred choice: as long as there is a SVO, a consensus, people put off many problems for later, including those claims which they have to political representatives.” But even in the current conditions, according to the head of FoRGO, the players could be more efficient. Thus, he was surprised that the parliamentary opposition had not come up with ways to increase the electoral base in conditions of party consensus, “although many of the answers are on the surface”: “Here, of course, there are the 2026 elections (to the State Duma.— “Kommersant”) will be interesting, and not only for the LDPR and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation this situation is existential.”

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party, experts reasoned, are faced with the problem of changing generations of leaders. The communists, according to Mr. Kostin, “just can’t find a balance” between weaving in new and retaining old personnel, although they retain the second regional infrastructure after United Russia: “But the downside is that the traditional communist electorate is beginning to erode.” The liberal democrats, the political scientist continued, will not be able to forever move on the image of the founder: “We need to do something, because the type of communication that the LDPR voter is used to, which was brilliantly represented by Vladimir Volfovich… There are no politicians of this level.”

Well, “A Just Russia – For Truth” again fell into the “transfer zone,” Mr. Kostin noted: the unification of the Socialist Revolutionaries with “Patriots of Russia” and “For Truth!” never had a multiplying effect, and “we did not receive a new party institution.” Technically, the party could encroach on the moderate-left electorate, alien to Soviet nostalgia, he admitted, but now experts “don’t see politicians” who would be capable of this. The round table participants refrained from assessing the prospects of New People and Yabloko, suggesting only that in their niche one could look for “unrepresented social groups.”

Against this background, United Russia remains the favorite of the 2026 Duma campaign. “The main beneficiary of consolidation and consensus, a long leadership bench, good regional infrastructure, the only challenge is to improve one’s own results,” explained Konstantin Kostin and added that, based on current premises, United Russia in 2026 “will confidently receive a constitutional majority.” But the 2024 presidential campaign, in his opinion, will not be projected onto the 2026 elections.

Grigory Leiba