Participants of the EISI round table “EDG 2023: results” discussed the election results

The 2023 regional elections became a rehearsal for the future presidential campaign, and it was successful for the authorities. This conclusion was reached by the participants of the round table of the Expert Institute for Social Research (EIS) “EDG 2023: results”, held on Tuesday at the MIA Rossiya Segodnya. According to them, the results of United Russia (UR) turned out to be higher than before, the governors supported by the president also received high percentages, and one of the main factors of the past campaign – “rally around the flag” – will continue to operate next year. Outside experts also agree that the 2024 presidential elections will be held calmly and without drama.

As Kommersant has already reported, the 2023 regional elections in the Kremlin were perceived from the very beginning as a rehearsal for the future presidential campaign, and participants EISI round table this was confirmed. “We won’t have any more elections before the presidential elections,” noted State Duma deputy from United Russia, political scientist Oleg Matveychev. He assessed the results of the campaign as favorable for the authorities, calling United Russia “the main winner of the elections.”

As a result of the elections, United Russia members improved their results almost everywhere, receiving regional parliaments And city ​​dumas their capitals of the new convocation by a qualified majority of votes.

At the same time, Mr. Matveychev briefly described the performance of other parties. According to him, the LDPR can also be considered the winner, which entered the parliaments of all regions except Kalmykia: “Political scientists predicted the death of this party due to the death of the leader, Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky. But it turned out that rumors of her death were exaggerated.” The deputy also called the result of “New People”, who took second place in the elections to the State Assembly of Yakutia, “not bad”: the party “has taken root and is a full member of the political system.” The political scientist considered the performance of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation unsuccessful (despite the resonant victory in the elections of the head of Khakassia, Valentin Konovalov, who became the first opposition governor who did not agree with the Kremlin and managed to be elected for a second term) and A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP), which did not overcome barrier in the five “old” regions and in the DPR.

From this followed Oleg Matveychev’s main conclusion, which also concerns the presidential campaign: “The main agenda is the SVO agenda and the patriotic agenda. They lead to the consolidation of society around the government and, accordingly, the party in power.”

“Everyone else who declares an alternative agenda, let’s say, social, like the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Right Russia, turned out to be irrelevant… People prefer to consolidate around the flag,” the expert believes. At the same time, the opinion of a number of political scientists that people are tired of the SVO, a routinization of public consciousness has occurred and the consensus is disintegrating turned out to be incorrect, the United Russia member is convinced: “The public consensus, on the contrary, is strengthening. We think that it will continue until the presidential elections.”

Political scientist Pavel Danilin agreed with this conclusion. In his opinion, the consolidation around power is evidenced by both the high turnout (CEC Chairman Ella Pamfilova called it a record since 2017) and the fact that “the governors and acting governors, who were supported by the president, were elected with the highest results.”

Political scientist Alexander Asafov, who is the deputy chairman of the Public Headquarters for Observing Elections in Moscow, highlighted another trend that is pleasant for the organizers of the 2024 presidential campaign: voters are increasingly trusting remote electronic voting and expressing fewer and fewer complaints about the elections in general. For example, this year the capital headquarters did not receive complaints about violations during home voting, typical for previous elections, or signals that the military was coming to the polling stations “in a single formation,” the expert said: “There are no complaints about home voting either to us at the Public Headquarters , nor to the Moscow City Election Commission. There are no complaints about the military voting; everyone understands that this is their specificity.”

Political scientist Alexander Nemtsev, who did not participate in the EISI round table, agrees that the past elections showed the stability of the Russian political system and the absence of any drama in the campaign.

The exception was Khakassia, and “in other regions there was a favorite candidate and a support group that contributed to him in one way or another,” so the campaigns took place without strong criticism and “politically strong discussion,” the expert states. The 2024 presidential campaign will follow the same quiet and calm scenario, suggests Mr. Nemtsev. The topic of the special operation, in his opinion, is now “above the fray”, and none of the parties speaks out against it.

At the same time, the party system is now inert and experiencing an identity crisis, the political scientist continues: “During this campaign, the voter did not understand how, say, SRZP differs from the LDPR, and all of them together differ from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the New People.” But here Russia is only repeating the global trend of the decline of the party system, believes Alexander Nemtsev: “We feel this doubly, since there is a party of the president with a high rating, and the rest can only reduce this rating through aggressive actions. But they won’t do this because they accept the rules of the game.” And this circumstance also contributes to the calm of the future presidential campaign, which nothing should interfere with, the expert summarizes.

Political scientist Vladimir Shemyakin calls an essential feature of the 2023 elections their holding in the conditions of the Northern Military District. This influenced the restraint of candidates and parties in criticizing the authorities, which, in turn, affected the results, the expert explains: “This can not be called a victory for United Russia, but a confirmation of the unity of the people in the conditions of the Northern Military District. I believe that until March, in the absence of significant shocks, this situation will continue.”

Andrey Vinokurov, Elena Rozhkova