Political scientists assessed the chances of parliamentary parties in the September regional elections

The Progressive Politics Foundation prepared a report “Party and political development of the country after the presidential elections: what to expect at the Unified Democratic Party 2024” (available from Kommersant), in which experts assessed the results of the recent campaign and the resulting prospects for parliamentary parties in the autumn regional elections. The authors made the most gloomy forecasts regarding the chances of the Socialist Revolutionaries: refusal to participate in the presidential race in March could come back to haunt them with problems in September.

The report first analyzes the position of A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP), which did not nominate its own presidential candidate and supported Vladimir Putin. According to experts, the voluntary refusal to fight led to an intensification of centrifugal processes within the party and the “political migration” of its active members.

Against the backdrop of “ideological stagnation,” this could lead to disappointing results in September, the study’s authors warn.

In particular, they predict a decline in the representation of the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Moscow City Duma and paint “extremely vague” prospects SRHR in the elections for governor of the Astrakhan region. In the first case, the result may be influenced by the passivity of the capital’s cell; in the second, the loss of internal party positions by one of the A Just Russia veterans, Oleg Shein (see “Kommersant” dated April 28, 2023). The situation with Mr. Shein may lead to a decrease in the effectiveness of SRZP in other regions of the Volga region, for example, in the Volgograd region, where the governor and deputies of the regional Duma will be elected, and in Kalmykia, where elections for the head of the republic will be held, the report says.

The gubernatorial campaign in St. Petersburg, the hometown of SRZP leader Sergei Mironov, in the event of a “negotiation” will hurt the political weight of the party, experts warn, although a “non-standard, original bright move” would help the Socialist-Revolutionaries “save face.” The only region where the party can count on a serious result remains the Chelyabinsk region, the document notes: gubernatorial elections will be held there in September, into which the participation of State Duma deputy Valery Hartung can bring intrigue. However, whether Mr. Hartung will run is still unknown.

For Communist Party of the Russian Federation the results of the presidential elections were a “big blow”, since the second place of the representative of the Communist Party has never been so “relative” (recall that the communist Nikolai Kharitonov received 4.3% of the votes, Vladislav Davankov from the “New People” – 3.9%, and the liberal -Democrat Leonid Slutsky – 3.2%), experts indicate.

In their opinion, this blow should lead to personnel consequences up to the change of the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation at the reporting and election congress at the end of 2024.

However, this will not prevent the communists from performing successfully in the traditionally “red” regions – in the parliamentary elections in Mari El, Kabardino-Balkaria, the Altai Republic and the Volgograd region, the authors of the report believe. The gubernatorial campaign in Bashkiria, where “the national movement around the “sacred mountains” – shihans, does not subside, could also become potentially promising for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.”

As for the Moscow City Duma, repeating the result of 2019 (13 mandates) and even maintaining the current representation (there are now 8 deputies in the Communist Party faction) looks like an “overwhelming task” for the Communist Party, since its capital branch is now headed by the “rather faceless” deputy Nikolai Zubrilin, and the most severe critics of the capital’s authorities, “obviously, will not even be nominated in these elections,” the report emphasizes.

Analyzing the situation LDPRthe authors paid great attention to the performance of its leader Leonid Slutsky in the presidential elections and the reasons why he took last place.

The consequence of this was the “dropout” of the liberal democrats from the new system of political coordinates, in which only presidential centrism, the left flank and the liberal “greenhouse” remained.

In the context of the Unified Democratic Party of 2024, experts predict the collapse of the LDPR’s position in the Legislative Assembly of the Khabarovsk Territory, where the party has dominated since the time of the now convicted governor Sergei Furgal, but at the same time they expect “relatively good” results in the parliamentary elections in Mari El and the Volgograd region, as well as in governor’s – in Sakhalin.

“New people” the authors of the report considered them to be the main beneficiaries of the presidential campaign, since the party’s ratings at the end of the elections showed a significant increase (see “Kommersant” dated March 29). The party has a chance to gain a foothold in the status of “the most moderate force with an alternative agenda of development and progress,” experts say. However, they did not make a forecast regarding the performance of the “New People” in the autumn elections, limiting themselves to stating that the EDG 2024 will be a “prologue” to the State Duma elections 2026, within which “the political system can expect a significant renewal.”

Finally, “United Russia”, which, like SRZP, did not nominate its own presidential candidate (Vladimir Putin, supported by United Russia, was a self-nominated candidate), acted as the “organizer” of the head of state’s campaign, including providing its mobilization infrastructure, the report says. True, in the minds of citizens this connection still remains indirect, and therefore United Russia will continue to “take on the negativity from regional conflicts, gubernatorial failures or unpopular government actions,” the authors of the study state. The report does not provide any forecasts regarding the chances of United Russia in the September elections, since “new realities” for them will come after the inauguration of Vladimir Putin and probable changes in the government.

Andrey Prah