Obvious versus probable – Newspaper Kommersant No. 160 (7361) of 09/01/2022

Contrary to the forecasts of “alarmists”, the 2022 election campaign is taking place against the backdrop of a decrease in anxiety in society, and the “patriotic consensus” has a good effect on the ratings of candidates from the authorities. This conclusion was reached on Wednesday by the participants of the round table “Single Voting Day 2022: Specifics, Trends and Forecast of Results”. However, the difficulties that have not happened now may manifest themselves in full during the next elections, experts warned.

Opening the round table, Konstantin Kostin, head of the Civil Society Development Foundation, said that the main factor influencing the course and result of the election campaign was the “patriotic consensus” that emerged as a result of the special military operation (SVO) and opposition to external sanctions. The main recipients of this “electoral bonus” were “United Russia” and all candidates for governor, supported by the head of state.

True, unexpected difficulties also appeared, Mr. Kostin noted: he attributed the fires in the Ryazan region and the scandalous start of the campaign in the Sverdlovsk region to them (a tough verbal conflict between the governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev and TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov). And in Yaroslavl and Kirov, where city dumas are elected this year, United Russia “traditionally has very difficult elections.” But in general, the party in power can get “one of its best results in the last five years,” the expert believes, and thus the negative effect of the 2018 pension reform will be smoothed out.

As for the non-systemic opposition, it, according to Konstantin Kostin, is demotivated. Part of her left, “to wait out the events and then return immediately to the beautiful Russia of the future, which will come from nowhere.” And mechanisms like “Smart Voting”, as the expert believes, “died” and “will not affect the result of the vote.”

Aleksey Chesnakov, director of the Center for Current Politics, recalled that after February 24, “the struggle for the existence of the EDG began, at least this year.” According to the political scientist, after the start of the SVO, several “informal parties” arose in Russia. The “alarmist party” believed that the elections should be “demolished” because the ratings would inevitably go down. The Pragmatist Party also advocated canceling the elections until better times in order to save money. The “Party of Deconstructors” suggested taking advantage of the situation to change the political system and constitutional mechanisms. And finally, the “party of stability” that won this dispute insisted that everything should be left as it is.

As a result, the decision made by the president not to cancel the elections turned out to be correct, Mr. Chesnakov stated: “Consolidation around the flag continues, the ratings of the president and the ruling party are high. Oppositional anti-systemic sentiments are low and hardly noticeable, and not only because the authorities have managed to effectively stop a significant part of the risks associated with non-systemic activities. But it is clear that even the anxiety of citizens is at a rather low rate in all sociological studies. The expert also noted that the authorities “managed to form an idea of ​​the normality of this campaign, even in an emergency.” And now “the elections look like a variant of a referendum on confidence in the authorities as a whole, and so far everything indicates that it will be held with a significant positive result for the authorities.”

INSOMAR political analysis director Viktor Poturemsky said that “in general, the campaign has already taken place”, and the discussion about whether to cancel the EDG “practically did not concern ordinary voters.” He also shared statistics, from which, in particular, it follows that 22 out of 28 parties used the right to nominate candidates, and there were much fewer refusals to register, which, according to the expert, indicates the high quality of the electoral system.

Gleb Kuznetsov, head of the EISI Expert Council, said that the regional nature of the election agenda creates advantages for those candidates for governors who run for the first term, thanks to the so-called “honeymoon effect”. Certain hopes are associated with these candidates, while the “old-timers” have to report on what they have done in recent years. However, “these elections did not and will not be an easy walk for the current heads of administrations,” the expert is sure: there will be no second rounds, but results of 80–90% of the votes should not be expected anywhere.

Mikhail Vinogradov, president of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, somewhat retreated from the thesis “everything is fine” and listed the potential risks for candidates from the government: a counterproductive agenda set by the government itself; challenges related to the events of 2022; activity of counter-players. True, so far, according to him, these risks “do not shoot”: even economic anxiety has decreased, and people “have returned to their previous consumer behavior.” “There is no negative interpretation of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict in the eyes of voters,” the political scientist explained. He also noted the high degree of “regionalization of the agenda.” The counter-players are not actively showing themselves, Mr. Vinogradov added: “The Communist Party is busy eating up the LDPR, A Just Russia is busy eating up the remnants of the LDPR, which the Communist Party did not eat.”

Konstantin Kostin, summing up the discussion, developed the theme of risks. In his opinion, the negative factors that are already noted, including in government forecasts, will fully manifest themselves next year. Therefore, everything related to overcoming difficulties in the regions is “developments that are guaranteed to be useful” to all headquarters during the EDG-2023, the political scientist concluded.

Ksenia Veretennikova