Liberal Democrats flocked to storm – Newspaper Kommersant No. 230 (7431) of 12/12/2022

On Sunday, a three-day all-Russian rally of the Liberal Democratic Party began, timed to coincide with the party’s birthday (December 13). One of the main goals of the event was to conduct an “ideological brainstorming”. On the first day of the rally, the party members talked about life without Vladimir Zhirinovsky and listened to instructions from the representative of the Central Election Commission. And invited expert Yevgeny Minchenko warned the liberal democrats that it was impossible to impose a common ideology on generations X and Y, and advised them to find an approach to young groups of voters, including through work in Telegram.

Opening the rally, LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky noted that the party celebrates its birthday for the first time without its “founding father” Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but continues its course in the difficult situation in which Russia finds itself in connection with a special military operation (SVO) and Western sanctions. From the front line, according to him, applications are constantly received with a request to be accepted into the Liberal Democratic Party. “This means that we are on the right track,” Mr. Slutsky said, assuring that there were no contradictions or internal conflicts in the party. To date, the LDPR has almost 350 thousand people, while over the past six months, more than 20 thousand new members have been admitted to the party, “without compromising any strict criteria that Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky introduced,” the leader reported.

He also boasted that the Liberal Democrats “are heard better than ever by the government, our bills, our ideas are adopted in the State Duma and implemented.” The LDPR works every day in new territories (Aleksey Didenko is responsible for this work in the party), and at the same time helps to return home those who were illegally mobilized. In addition, the Liberal Democratic Party “took under the wing of the seamstresses,” Leonid Slutsky added: “These are hundreds of selfless women who sew and send (to the NVO zone.— “b”) sleeping bags, balaclavas, jackets, warm underwear.”

The chairman of the party ended his speech on an optimistic note, saying that in many regions of the Liberal Democratic Party “already the second party, but there is no reason to be dizzy with success.”

He also assured that the Liberal Democrats are ready for the next single voting day, they have a plan for each region, and everywhere they will try to achieve the maximum result.

However, a member of the Central Election Commission, Yevgeny Shevchenko, who spoke next, seemed to have doubts about the readiness of the Liberal Democratic Party for the elections, because for an hour he spoke in detail about the rules for registering candidates. True, they have undergone a number of changes that the party members might not have known about. For example, now when submitting documents to the election commission, it is necessary to indicate SNILS. At the same time, Mr. Shevchenko recalled that a candidate-foreign agent must inform the election commission about his status, but he immediately made a reservation: “Knowing the Liberal Democratic Party’s scrupulousness both to people who have been convicted and to people who are enemies of our country, I think that you will not have such people. This is very important, the purity of the party ranks, the purity of the party lists, and we note that there are practically no convicted persons and foreign agents in the lists of the Liberal Democratic Party.”

The CEC member also recalled the submission of information on income and property: “We call this document “Recall everything”.” According to him, in addition to property, candidates sometimes even forget their own children: “One dad registered all the children, and forgot one, to whom all the steamboat factories were registered. But we found it through the IRS.” One of the party members asked if it was necessary to submit the TIN on paper, as required by some election commissions. Yevgeny Shevchenko assured that it was not necessary, it was enough to provide the TIN number, and he promised to talk to the chairman of the election commission, where they demand excessive documentation.

“Yevgeny Alexandrovich is a great person,” Yevgeny Minchenko, head of the Minchenko Consulting communications holding, described the previous speaker.

Explaining what exactly he considers “meaningless and unnecessary,” the expert suggested that the Liberal Democratic Party, as the oldest parliamentary party in Russia, come up with the initiative to cancel “all this nonsense – SNILS, TINs, and so on, all this is at the disposal of the state.” According to the political strategist, an application for nomination could also be submitted through the public services portal.

Paying tribute to the prophetic gift of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the fact that he “wins elections even after death,” Mr. Minchenko turned to political analysis. He noted the modern trend towards “anti-establishment”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is fighting the oligarchs “although he is engaged in the redistribution of property”, and Russian President Vladimir Putin “challenge the world’s elites.” At the same time, we live in an era of huge amounts of information, and in these conditions “it is necessary to apply much more energy to get into the head of the voter,” because “the brain defends itself and creates barriers,” the expert warned. In his opinion, in the modern world, it has become more difficult for leaders to address voters, because “it is impossible to be majestic on a smartphone screen.”

Yevgeny Minchenko called the idea of ​​the LDPR to introduce active suffrage from the age of 16 “brilliant”, but noted that an approach should be developed to the younger voters, with whom, in his opinion, United Russia and the Communist Party do not work. “Big narratives are dead. An absolutely meaningless idea to come up with a common ideology,” the expert explained. The “X” generation (from 31 to 45 years old) saw the collapse of various ideologies, and the “Greek” generation (from 21 to 30 years old) used to live in comfort and is incomprehensible to attempts to impose an ideology on it.

Mr. Minchenko also believes that in Russia they have not found a single speaker who would competently work with voters on the topic of the NVO, and advised the Liberal Democratic Party to find such a person. At the same time, in his opinion, because of the SVO, a division into “four Russias” occurred in society: the warring, the deep (it is “in the stage of bargaining”), the capital (it is “in the stage of denial”) and the one who left. In this regard, the speaker advised the Liberal Democratic Party to “make a strategy for four Russias”, including the one that “left”, because these people “for the most part do not renounce Russian citizenship, they retain the right to vote.” In the meantime, according to Yevgeny Minchenko, he heard only proposals for “warring Russia.” Finally, he urged party members to “go to Telegram”, because Telegram channels, according to a survey by VTsIOM, are the main source of information and communication for 60% of the audience aged 18 to 35.

After lunch, lectures were held for activists and personal meetings of the party chairman with activists from the regions. And on Monday, the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party will discuss with delegates from the field, deputies and senators questions of party ideology.

Ksenia Veretennikova