“New people” hope not to lose novelty – Newspaper Kommersant No. 36 (7481) of 03/02/2023

On Wednesday, on the occasion of its third anniversary, the New People party held a conference where they summed up the results of their work and shared their plans for participating in future election campaigns. In particular, in September 2023, she plans to nominate her candidate for the election of the mayor of Moscow. They may be Vice Speaker of the State Duma Vladislav Davankov, who recently broke his leg on the streets of the capital. However, the final decision on the candidacy will be made by the Moscow branch of the party.

The conference was held in the building of the Parliamentary Library in Moscow, and the speakers repeatedly emphasized that the party has been represented in the State Duma for half of its still short life (its faction has 15 deputies). The leader of the New People, Aleksey Nechaev, recalled that exactly three years ago, on March 1, 2020, the founding congress of the party was held, and the day before, for eight hours, party members came up with a name for it. By the way, experts consider it one of the key factors in the passage of “New People” to the State Duma: the name chosen as a result responded to the society’s request for an update.

“They say people need change. We decided to become these changes ourselves,” Mr. Nechaev said, recalling that the New People emerged as a “party of common sense” and plan to remain so. At the same time, he offered his own version of the “Russian national ideology”: “There are three reasons why people become entrepreneurs: to earn money, to realize themselves, and because they don’t want a boss. This is the Russian dream. And we spend money to develop a national ideology. She’s been here for a long time!”

Alexei Nechaev also lamented that many in Russia “want there were no rich people”, while New People prefer “no poor people”. And in this sense, a party member who came into politics from business (Mr. Nechaev is the founder of the Faberlic perfume and cosmetics company; in 2021 he declared an income of almost 2.5 billion rubles), the sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences is depressing, according to which a significant part of the respondents called the limit dreams of a salary of 160-180 thousand rubles. instead of striving for more. “We ourselves have achieved success and understand how to let people earn and realize themselves,” the party leader said and admitted that the metaphor of “straightening his shoulders” is much closer to him than “tightening his belts.”

In addition, the politician named the five main principles of his party. The first is not to invent new prohibitions: “There are many prohibitors without us, our path is to open new opportunities for development and remove restrictions, and not punish alternative opinions.” The second is to prevent populism. The third is “we don’t have a place for informers”: the head of the New People is not close to the activities of politicians who “scribble denunciations about bloggers and musicians.” The fourth principle is to “mind your own business, not talk about freezing Europe.” “Why do people in Russia like to laugh at Biden so much?” Alexei Nechaev asked a seemingly rhetorical question. And he immediately received an answer from the audience: “Why did they laugh at Brezhnev?” Finally, the fifth principle is that any criticism must be constructive.

Sardana Avksentyeva, deputy head of the New People faction in the State Duma, summed up the results of legislative work. In her opinion, the main thing is that the party managed to “impose its own agenda.” “We offer something, but we are told that this is populism. And then this initiative comes in another way – from another faction or from the government, ”the deputy explained. According to her, in a year and a half, members of the faction have submitted 114 bills, 30 of which have already been adopted, and 68 are under consideration.

2023 will be the most active year for the New People in terms of the number of election campaigns in which they will take part: the party intends to nominate its candidates in 40 regions and compete for seats in 16 regional legislative assemblies, 11 city dumas and 200 municipal assemblies. In particular, party members intend to participate in the election of the mayor of Moscow. As Alexei Nechaev told reporters, the New People already have several candidates, but the conference of the Moscow branch will make the final decision. “There are those who want to eat, people are interesting, resourceful, with experience, one yesterday slipped on Sobyanin’s tile,” the leader of the New People explained. Earlier, he told the conference participants that State Duma Vice Speaker Vladislav Davankov was absent because he had broken his leg.

The event was also attended by political scientists, who spoke very positively about the potential of the party. So, Konstantin Kalachev noted the good results of the New People in polls in which respondents are asked which party they are ready to vote for. In his opinion, under the conditions of sanctions pressure, the proposals of the party will be in demand, so the expert called it “a very real task” to double the party’s representation in the State Duma of the next convocation.

Alexander Kynev predicted that 2023 will be more “competitive and diverse” compared to 2022. According to him, last year the regions mostly voted “very administratively controlled with an extremely predictable result”, and the elections were characterized by “mass apathy” and low turnout. This year, the expert expects, new parties will get more opportunities, as the level of apathy will be lower.

Ksenia Veretennikova