On March 1, United Russia launches primaries for the selection of candidates for elections

On March 1, the preliminary voting for the selection of candidates for the elections, which is conducted by United Russia, starts. This was announced at a meeting of the Presidium of the General Council of the party by Secretary of the General Council Andrei Turchak. According to him, voting in the primaries will be held using the State Services portal. He noted that the platform on which the preliminary voting will take place could become one of the targets of cyberattacks, but the party is ready for this and there are backup work schemes.

Deputy Secretary of the General Council of the party Sergei Perminov said that the current campaign will be a prologue to the presidential elections in 2024. In the fall of 2023, more than 34,000 mandates will be played in 78 campaigns in 54 subjects. At the same time, in the presentation shown at the presidium of the General Council, it was indicated that there would be 25 campaigns for the election of governors, including five campaigns that would be indirect. Thus, “United Russia” indirectly confirmed that the heads of the new regions will be elected through parliaments. Perminov said that the primaries will be held electronically. From March 3 to March 7, the primaries in the regions will be launched, candidates will be nominated from March 8 to April 27, and voters will be registered from April 17 to May 26. The electronic voting itself will take place from May 22 to May 28, and its results will be summed up on May 30.

The party is also relaunching its project to train young politicians “Politstartup” called “Politstart”. In addition to the participants in the primaries, political technologists who want to work with United Russia will also be able to take part in the training, Perminov said.

Turchak also focused on the participants in the special operation who want to go into politics (Vedomosti wrote on January 12 that the authorities would bet on people with a military background in the elections). According to him, “these people deserve to be represented in government at various levels.” Therefore, he suggested that they think about how “the most comfortable” way for them to take part in the primaries and, as a result, be nominated by United Russia in the elections. Moreover, Turchak stressed that this applies to all levels of elections, including gubernatorial ones.

“United Russia” also approved a list of commissioners from the party who will oversee regional campaigns. For example, Senator Alexander Karelin will be authorized in the elections in Buryatia and the Novosibirsk Region, Sergey Neverov, Vice-Speaker of the State Duma, in the Moscow and Ivanovo Regions, Senator Sergey Perminov, in Moscow and the Oryol Region, State Duma Deputy Viktor Seliverstov and others. State Duma deputies will participate in the elections in the new territories: Zurab Makiyev in the DPR, Viktor Vodolatsky in the LPR, Artem Bichaev in the Zaporozhye region, Igor Kastyukevich in the Kherson region. The campaigns in the new territories will be supervised by the head of the CEC of the party, Alexander Sidyakin.

In the new territories, the primaries will be held both electronically and offline, Sidyakin said. The voters will include citizens who have not yet received a passport of Russian citizens, but have submitted relevant applications. And even those who could not close foreign accounts, get rid of foreign financial instruments can be candidates – this must first be reported to the organizing committee of the primaries, Sidyakin said. Candidates in these subjects will need to submit copies of the statement of unwillingness to be a citizen of Ukraine without fail, Sidyakin emphasized. “Another peculiarity is that it will be necessary to indicate in the application for participation in the preliminary voting the fact of having a criminal record or its absence. For a preliminary vote, notification will be enough,” he said. Sidyakin said that where fighting is taking place now, “there will be a special procedure for holding primaries,” including mobile voting.

Such a procedure will be established at the elections of councils of deputies of the Yakovlevsky and Shebekinsky urban districts of the Belgorod region, said the first deputy head of the CEC of the party, Maxim Zhavoronkov. Only members of the party will be able to take part in the primaries in these territories (the fourth model of the primaries). At the same time, Turchak added that after the start of the primaries, perhaps this list will be expanded “taking into account the operational situation that will develop in the border zone.”