Kremlin experts discuss competition in 2023 elections

The electoral ratings of parties have fundamentally changed over the past year, Mikhail Mamonov, head of the VTsIOM’s political analysis practice, said during a round table of the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI) close to the Kremlin. The discussion was devoted to the state of political structures before the start of the election campaign.

Direct gubernatorial elections in 2023 will be held in 22 regions (if Zaporizhia and Kherson regions are included, but no decision on the format of the elections has been made there). Legislative assemblies will be elected in 20 subjects of the Federation – including new territories.

According to Mamonov, the position of only two parties, the LDPR and A Just Russia, did not change during the year of the special operation. The number of those wishing to vote for the party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky in January 2022 was 8%, and now it is 9%. For Right Russians, the indicator decreased from 7 to 6%.

But the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the New People, as the representative of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center noted, even worsened their positions. At the beginning of 2022, 7% of voters were ready to support the party of Alexei Nechaev, and now – 4%.

“If in January 2022, 16% spoke about voting for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, obviously still under the effect of the 2021 election campaign, now it is about 10–11%,” Mamonov said. In other words, the electoral ratings of the Communist Party rolled back to the times five years ago, before the pension reform, he said.

On the other hand, United Russia increased its electoral base over the year, says Mamonov: at the beginning of 2022, 31% declared their readiness to vote for the party, at the beginning of 2023 – already 38-39%. The sociologist added that support for the ruling party is differentiated depending on the regions and federal districts. For example, in the Central Federal District and the Northwestern Federal District it is traditionally lower: 34% and 31%, respectively, expressed their desire to vote for the ruling party.

But United Russia will nominate candidates for every mandate and nominees to win the first round in the gubernatorial election, says senator Sergei Perminov, deputy secretary of the United Russia party’s general council. “This is our fundamental task,” he stressed.

Five years ago, in 2018, against the background of the pension reform, United Russia did not cope with this task everywhere. Then Valentin Konovalov (KPRF) won the elections in Khakassia, Vladimir Sipyagin (LDPR) – in the Vladimir region, Sergey Furgal (LDPR) – in the Khabarovsk Territory.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation will oppose United Russia in the struggle for first place in legislative assemblies, said Sergei Obukhov, secretary of the party’s Central Committee for elections, State Duma deputy. As for the gubernatorial elections, the Communists have good chances in the Altai Republic and the Omsk region, and the Communists will bet on them, given that “second place is a forced retreat.”

Obukhov did not argue with the fact that the rating of the ruling party had grown, but he found an explanation for this: half of the electorate now declared by United Russia is the effect of “rallying around the flag” – this is how patriotic consolidation in the face of an external threat is called. But, as the communist says, United Russia’s ratings in the regions are “rather hollow” because people do not identify themselves with representatives of the ruling party.

At the same time, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will not play on the United Russia field in terms of appealing to the theme of the special operation, Obukhov says. The Communists see no point in this, since their power is not comparable with the ruling party: as an example, he cited the fact that, according to party sociology, most people consider the recognition of the DNR and LNR on February 21, 2022 to be the initiative of United Russia, and not the Communist Party.

State Duma deputy from the LDPR Stanislav Naumov stressed that the party was the first to start the “transit”, which sooner or later everyone will face. He noted the entry into the Liberal Democratic Party of businessman Viktor Bout, who served over 12 years in an American prison on a criminal case on illegal arms trafficking. “Together with Leonid Slutsky, these are the figures who today embody continuity in relation to that style, to the course that Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky pursued. We feel that Zhirinovsky’s energy is with us, it feeds attention to what Vladimir Volfovich said [Жириновский] over the past few years.”

Political scientist Pavel Danilin says that the intrigue lies in who will fight for second place. In his opinion, the party that came second in the elections to legislative assemblies in the new territories will be able to claim a similar result throughout the country.