Parties have begun preparations for the Moscow City Duma elections 2024

There is less than a year left before the elections to the Moscow City Duma (MGD), and the opposition parties, which, following the results of the previous campaign, managed to almost triple their representation, have already begun to prepare for them. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which received 13 out of 45 mandates in 2019, hopes to maintain its position in 2024, but will be more careful in selecting candidates. “A Just Russia – For Truth” began preparations a year ago and has already presented some of the candidates. Yabloko (five deputies in the faction) expects to repeat the result, although it is afraid of problems with collecting signatures. The LDPR, which failed to enter the capital’s parliament in 2019, intends to create its own faction there. And the “New People,” for whom this will be the first election to the Moscow City Duma, are not yet ready to talk about specific forecasts, but they are confident that they will definitely have a faction.

The next elections to the Moscow City Duma should be held in September 2024: 45 deputies will be elected only in single-mandate constituencies. Let us recall that the 2019 campaign was accompanied by mass protests, the reason for which was the exclusion of a number of candidates from participating in the elections. The opposition, nevertheless, managed to increase its representation almost threefold compared to the previous composition of the Moscow City Duma: from seven to 19 deputies.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation had the best result among opposition parties in 2019: the Communists received 13 mandates – almost three times more than in the previous convocation (five mandates). However, over the course of four years, the Communist Party lost some of its seats: the mandate of the deceased Nikolai Gubenko was won in the by-election by Yabloko member Vladimir Ryzhkov, and Oleg Sheremetyev, who was serving a suspended sentence, was replaced by United Russia representative Elena Kats. In addition, Elena Shuvalova, Dmitry Loktev and Yevgeny Stupin (in 2023 included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents) were expelled by the communists from the party and faction for various reasons. It was not possible to preserve the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the position of deputy chairman of the Moscow City Duma: after the death of Mr. Gubenko, VGTRK journalist Andrei Medvedev, who was not a member of any faction, was elected as the new deputy chairman.

The capital branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has already begun preparations for new elections to the Moscow City Duma, its leader and head of the Communist Party faction in the Moscow City Duma Nikolai Zubrilin told Kommersant. “We already have a preliminary list of candidates, and the selection will be very tough compared to last time,” the communist noted. According to him, the recent elections of the mayor of Moscow helped the party members to carry out an “audit of the city economy,” the results of which will be used in the upcoming parliamentary campaign. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation intends to at least maintain its positions in the next convocation, but on the condition that the elections are held without fraud, Mr. Zubrilin concluded.

According to the results of the 2019 elections, the Yabloko and A Just Russia parties received three mandates each (after the elections, self-nominated Daria Besedina, who was included in the register of foreign agents in 2023, joined the Yabloko party). The leader of the capital branch of A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) and ex-candidate for mayor of Moscow Dmitry Gusev told Kommersant that preparations for the elections to the Moscow City Duma began back in 2022 with a municipal campaign in which “some ideas” were tested. . And the recent mayoral elections have become the main platform for the Right Russia party, Mr. Gusev emphasized: “We are the only party that has completed its election program for the mayoral campaign, and our “security dome” is being built at a rapid pace.” In addition, SRZP was the only party of all parties to present six future candidates to the Moscow City Duma during the mayoral election campaign, added Dmitry Gusev. Let us remind you that these are social activists Inna Gorislavtseva and Georgy Fedorov, writer Konstantin Krokhmal, municipal deputy Ilya Sviridov, ex-candidate for the Mundepa Alexey Kremenskov and chairman of the party branch in the south-west of Moscow Elena Yamshchikova. Mr. Gusev promised to present the remaining candidates in the near future.

The head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma and deputy chairman of the capital’s party cell, Maxim Kruglov, told Kommersant that the party will definitely take part in the next Moscow elections. “At a minimum, we expect to maintain the current size of the faction – five deputies. However, to participate in the elections we need to collect signatures, and this, as always, will be a prohibitive barrier to the registration of opposition candidates,” says Mr. Kruglov. Let us note that it was precisely the difficulties with collecting signatures in the summer that Moscow City Duma deputy Sergei Mitrokhin justified his refusal to participate in the last mayoral elections, explaining that the party’s anti-war position would not allow him to overcome the municipal filter. Nevertheless, Maxim Kruglov promised that during the 2024 campaign, Yabloko will again talk about the need for peace: “For us this is a fundamental topic.”

The LDPR did not make it into the current convocation of the Moscow City Duma in 2019, although in the previous convocation it had one deputy there. But in the 2024 elections, the party intends to take five mandates, the leader of its Moscow branch, Dmitry Koshlakov-Krestovsky, told Kommersant. According to him, the Liberal Democrats also began preparing for the upcoming campaign with the 2022 municipal elections. Let us remember that at that time the LDPR improved its result compared to the previous elections and received 11 seats in district councils compared to four in 2017. “The concept of the campaign and preliminary lists of candidates in all electoral districts of Moscow are now being approved,” added Mr. Koshlakov-Krestovsky.

In 2024, the New People party, which did not yet exist in 2019, will take part in the elections to the capital’s parliament for the first time. The past mayoral elections, in which State Duma Vice-Speaker Vladislav Davankov took fourth place, are considered by the party to be “a good basis for the next election cycle,” Anna Drobot, head of the capital’s branch of New People, told Kommersant: “During the campaign, our team has grown two and a half times compared to the municipal elections of 2022: 2.5 thousand people got involved in the work, and now we are busy developing a procedure for selecting the 45 most worthy candidates for each district of the Moscow City Duma.” Now “New People” are engaged in “landing” Mr. Davankov’s mayoral program in single-mandate urban districts, Ms. Drobot noted. “Moscow is different, each district is like a separate city, there is a lot of work ahead. It is still difficult to talk about a specific result. But we are confident that we will have a faction in the Moscow City Duma,” the head of the department concluded.

Elena Rozhkova