Path, faith and values ​​- Newspaper Kommersant No. 16 (7461) of 01/30/2023

Last Thursday, United Russia (ER) held a special conference call for representatives of its regional branches on the upcoming regional elections and preliminary voting, through which potential candidates will be selected. Party members were warned that this year’s elections should be viewed as a test before the upcoming federal presidential campaign, and some ideological lines were recommended for use: solidarity, heroes and patriots, development and a sense of stability, care and assistance, and ownership. The United Russia believes that heroes are not only those who directly take part in the NWO, and in the work of the party can rely not only on its members and supporters. However, the regions are given a fairly large degree of freedom of interpretation: they can correct existing settings or propose their own.

As sources told Kommersant, on January 27, the federal leadership of United Russia held a special conference call for its regional branches before the start of this year’s election campaign. Before its official start, United Russia still needs to hold a preliminary vote, which means, as Kommersant’s interlocutors explain, in fact, the campaign for the party has already begun. At the meeting, her approximate timing was brought to the party members. Until February 1, they must hold special training seminars for members of their campaign headquarters, form campaign budgets, prepare plans for sociological research, and identify potential opinion leaders and counter-propaganda lines.

For the most part, the selector was devoted specifically to the primaries: United Russia, in particular, was told that they would be held mainly in electronic form and according to the first model (anyone can be electors).

However, some ideological contours of the future campaign were also discussed at the meeting. Kommersant has already reported that in preparation for the 2024 presidential campaign, the Kremlin’s domestic political bloc intends to closely monitor this year’s elections, including in order to test ideological attitudes. According to Kommersant’s sources, the participants of the last meeting were also informed that the elections this autumn should be considered as the final test before the presidential ones, and this also applies to ideological lines.

However, Kommersant’s interlocutors stipulate that so far all the installations discussed are advisory in nature. In the elections, it is important that the campaign agenda be closer to the problems and demands of the regions, which means that the regional offices should be left with a certain degree of freedom in this matter, both Kommersant’s interlocutors emphasize.

According to sources, ideological recommendations were contained in the speeches of two deputy secretaries of the United Russia General Council – Sergei Perminov, who is in charge of the party for elections, and Daria Lantratova, who oversees information work.

Thus, Mr. Perminov voiced the recommended single campaign slogan: “Our way. Our faith. Our values”.

In addition, he added that through all party projects implemented in 2023 and 2024, the line “ours, ours, ours” should go: it is important that United Russia does not forget about the line of “complicity and integration.” This meaning should be broadcast both at the primaries and through the Politstart personnel project. The party is an instrument of real action, it introduces new direct formats, is “operational, allied and synergistic” to everyone “who devotes strength and soul to Russia,” Mr. Perminov explained, according to Kommersant’s interlocutors. According to him, United Russia should be positioned as “an assembly point of the pro-presidential, popular majority, a party of common destiny, responsibly approaching the future.”

United Russia also indicated the main risks that United Russia may face during the campaign: increased anxiety and tension in certain strata of the population. The situation can be aggravated by “administrative shortcomings” – they are able to transform public moods and give them a negative dynamic. Mr. Perminov himself is concerned about the decline in planning horizons among Russians and growing fears about a possible unexpected deterioration in living conditions. He also did not forget to mention that, due to the geography of the regional elections, 2023 will inevitably refresh “the memory of the difficult (for the ruling party.— “b”) of the 2018 election cycle”, while “external sources” will continue to increase pressure on Russia: they may try to provoke separatism and destroy “interethnic and interfaith” harmony. United Russia also mentioned the candidates’ personal risks, urging them to think about rethinking the goals and objectives of the development of regions, which cannot but change in the new conditions.

Daria Lantratova, according to sources, explained in detail the ideological lines: solidarity, heroes and patriots, development and a sense of stability, care and assistance, and ownership.

“Patriotism, cohesion, unity have ceased to be abstract categories, they have become our driving force,” Kommersant’s interlocutors convey the words of Ms. Lantratova. According to her, this line in the positioning of candidates can be strengthened through various patriotic actions, meetings with veterans and new heroes, events in support of the mobilized, etc. Speaking of heroes and patriots, Daria Lantratova noted that they should not be understood as only those those who take part in the NWO: the heroes for the EP should also be those who do their daily work in the field, honestly work for the benefit of the people. According to Mrs. Lantratova, doctors, teachers, and workers of industrial and agricultural enterprises can be heroes. She called on party members to expand the party base and interact with those who support Russian policy, but for some reason are not a member of the United Russia or are skeptical about it: approaches, Daria Lantratova believes, must be sought for everyone, people cannot be “segregated”.

The theme of development and a sense of stability, in her opinion, should run like a “red thread” through all the activities of the party: for example, party members are recommended not to forget to convey to voters the results of the implementation of their “People’s Program”. Mrs. Lantratova, according to sources, promised that assistance to the military, their families, as well as residents of the annexed regions will remain the unconditional priority of the party. EP believes that Russia has entered “a period of great historical challenges” affecting the fate of every person, so the theme of ownership is intertwined with the theme of patriotism and solidarity, says the interlocutor of Kommersant.

“Overcoming trials, victory and a better future equals United Russia,” the source describes “the general background component of the ideological component of the campaign.”

Daria Lantratova and Sergey Perminov, in a conversation with Kommersant, did not confirm or refute the theses of their speeches. “As a pro-presidential majority party, of course, we are guided by the 2024 presidential elections,” Mr. Perminov said. “We really always draw ideas and draw conclusions from our regional campaigns when planning federal ones.”

Andrey Vinokurov