How the last campaign ended before the 2024 presidential elections

The Bureau of the Supreme Council of United Russia, headed by Boris Gryzlov and the Presidium of the General Council, headed by Andrei Turchak, as well as party chairman Dmitry Medvedev, will sum up the results of the regional elections on September 14, the last before the 2024 presidential campaign. Judging by the preliminary voting results, the governors representing United Russia won the elections. This time, the party in power nominated four new acting governors and 15 governors.

In two more regions, communist candidates were elected – member of the Presidium of the Communist Party Central Committee Andrei Klychkov, who heads the Oryol region, the birthplace of Gennady Zyuganov, and member of the Communist Party Central Committee Valentin Konovalov, head of Khakassia. However, it is unlikely that United Russia will count their victory as a disadvantage, since representatives of the party in power were not on the ballot for the gubernatorial elections in these regions.

For the second time in a row, United Russia is not nominating candidates against Klychkov, who became acting governor in 2017 and ran for election in 2018. Konovalov, an employee of Pravda Khakassia, who barely headed the Republican Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, won in 2018 partly by accident. This year, State Duma deputy and single-mandate Sergei Sokol ran in competitive elections against Konovalov. Vedomosti sources said that United Russia’s ratings open up the possibility of at least a second round in Khakassia. But in early September he withdrew from the election race, citing health reasons. In fact, this was the only campaign around which there was still intrigue by the beginning of September.

“Falcon ran to win,” says political scientist and regionalist Vitaly Ivanov. – This was not an experiment [по проведению конкурентных губернаторских выборов в 2023 г.]” There were chances for success, he says, “but illness prevented them from being realized.” In addition, the political scientist believes, keeping Sokol in the region will allow him to lay claim to the position of head of the republic in the future. Although the elections as a whole were held “with reduced competition,” which can be explained by the military operation in Ukraine, Ivanov summarizes. Among the features of the campaign, experts noted a small amount of campaigning for the main candidates for governor.

The 2023 elections will differ greatly depending on their level, notes political strategist Oleg Zakharov.

There was a “competition of percentages” in the gubernatorial campaigns, and there was little doubt about the victory of the favorites in the first round, he says. But the elections of regional parliaments (held in 20 regions) and the results of local campaigns may bring surprises, Zakharov believes. For example, the results of Yabloko in Veliky Novgorod, if they are significant, may give reason to wonder whether the “liberal flank” has now thinned out too much, he argues.

It is during elections in the regions and at the local level that the “battle of technologies and technologists” takes place, says Zakharov, since in the outback the notorious administrative resource is often the authority of the head of a district or city, and it is not great everywhere (because heads are generally not elected, but appointed ), and it is not always possible to convert it into electoral indicators. In addition, with each election, the role of “guerrilla Internet technologies” (chat rooms in instant messengers, targeted advertising in social networks) increases, in which candidates can easily compete with large parties and candidates “with resources,” says Zakharov.

After summing up the results of the regional elections, the authorities will actively begin preparing for the federal – presidential elections. Previously, the leadership of the Kremlin’s internal political bloc had already told relevant vice-governors that the upcoming campaign would, in fact, be of a “referendum type” (see Vedomosti of April 3). Elections are based on three theses: “it was – it is – it will be” (pride, confidence, hope).

During the regional campaign, consultations between regional officials responsible for policy were put “on pause,” Vedomosti sources claim. Although some clarifications on ideology were still conveyed to the regions.

For example, in the summer it was proposed to think about a centralized mechanism for distributing information within the campaign. And in the course of working with the concept “it was – it became – it will be,” notes one of Vedomosti’s interlocutors, it was recommended to focus on the last word – this should remind people of the prospects that await the country. According to him, the creation of content centers in the regions that will produce a positive agenda in local communities is also being discussed in order to convey to people the main ideas of the campaign.